Shelter From the Storm
by lizandletdie
Summary: Modern Spinner!Rumple domestic violence shelter AU (non-Mr. Gold). Bobby leaves his abusive wife for a shelter only to find complications in one of the women he meets there.
1. Chapter 1

_Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm_

 _"Come in," she said,_

 _"I'll give you shelter from the storm."_

The bus was nearly empty so late at night, but the little boy dozing on his shoulder kept Robert Rumsey alert despite their long journey. They had been in transit for eighteen hours and on four different buses, and both father and son were feeling the effects of the exhaustion. But while Bailey dozed, Bobby could hardly contain his nervous energy.

By now, Milah had to have realized that they'd left. Was she angry? Worried? Would she come looking for them or would she even care? There was a part of him that wanted desperately to call her and reassure her that they were okay and Bae would be taken care of. He'd always done it before, and each time she'd always said he was overreacting and told him to come home so they could talk. She'd always promise that things would be better, and they would be for a little while until they were worse again.

Bae was stirring a little and he shushed his son, brushing curly black hair off the boy's face so he could see the faded green and yellow mark on his son's cheek just below his left eye. He still didn't know where it had come from as neither Milah nor Bae had been willing to tell him any specifics, but that had to be the final straw. He could live with many things, but he couldn't let his son be hurt.

It had taken him longer than he'd have liked to secure a place somewhere, but he was friendless with no family to speak of and had a child to look after and none of the local shelters accepted men unless they were homeless. Finally, he'd found a place with a separate facility for men and older teenage boys that could take them in.

He'd waited until Milah was gone out with her friends and helped Bae pack a bag, being sure that he brought Mr. Bear and the book they'd been reading before bed. He left his cell phone on the nightstand and withdrew all the money from his personal accounts. It wasn't much, but it was enough to purchase tickets to get them to the shelter and hopefully enough to help them get a fresh start someplace else.

It was getting close to midnight when the bus finally pulled to their stop, and he was forced to shake his son awake. There was no way for him to carry the bags and his son with his limp. Bae didn't complain as he took his father's hand and disembarked the bus and Bobby was so proud of him for being so good even though it had been an exhausting day for everyone.

The shelter was a compound with a privacy fence surrounding two buildings on opposite sides of a playground. He had to check in with a security guard who compared his driver's license to a list of names before they were allowed inside the gate with instructions to check in with the building on the left. They had to be buzzed in, but he felt oddly light as they finally stepped inside. There was a woman sitting at a desk whose eyes instantly went to his with a world weary sort of evaluation that seemed to pin him in place. Her expression softened quite a bit as she took in Bailey with his fading black eye, though, and when she turned her attention back towards Bobby she seemed less suspicious.

"Can I help you?" she said.

"I spoke to someone on the phone earlier," he said as he nervously set his license on her desk. "Robert and Bailey Rumsey."

She scanned a list before double checking his identification again.

"Alright," she said, handing the card back to him. "You two can come with me."

The woman stood up and led them towards a brightly lit staircase. Bae was visibly exhausted by this point, trailing behind his father and forcing the entire procession to go a little slower.

"You'll be in a room together," the lady said. "Most of the people here are older teenagers, but we occasionally get adult men. The women and most of the children stay in the other building, but your son will be able to play with them when it's daylight. You're not allowed into the other building, and they aren't allowed in this one."

He was trying to remember what she said as she told him about the school district and the rules for using the phone, but the details were starting to blur together after such a long day. He wasn't allowed to tell anyone where he lived, wasn't allowed guests, and wasn't allowed to fraternize with any of the other residents - as though he had any interest in doing so after everything else. He just wanted to put his son to bed and try to put his life together again.

Finally, they were given a room and left alone. It looked like a college dorm room right down to the built in desks and cinderblock walls, but Bae would be safe here and that was the important part.

Bae had to be coaxed into staying awake long enough to change into his pajamas, but Bobby wanted to maintain whatever normalcy he could for as long as he could, and he tucked the boy into bed with Mr. Bear, only skipping reading to him from their usual routine in deference to Bae's exhaustion.

As tired as he was, once he was laying on the thin mattress across the room from Bailey he was suddenly wide awake. Even having planned this for the better part of a week, it was hard to believe it had really happened and there was a part of him that was convinced that when he woke up they'd be back in the little house with Milah and it all would have been wasted. He wasn't sure if he was more afraid that he'd never left, or that he finally really had.

It was late morning when Bobby finally woke up. It took him a little while to remember where he was, but the bone weariness he still felt eased into a strange sense relaxation. He'd gotten away, and they were safe.

Bae was kneeling on his bed looking out the window, and apparently completely oblivious to his father's state of consciousness. Bobby smiled at his son's curiosity even after everything else that he'd gone through this week. It was a reminder of why it had been so important to leave.

"Good morning," he said, drawing the boy's attention from the window.

Bailey hopped down off the bed instantly, coming to hug his father.

"Good morning," Bae said at last. "I was very quiet."

"Yes you were," Bobby replied. "You could have woken me, though."

"I was okay," Bae said. "You were tired."

He couldn't deny the truth of his son's statement, and he had desperately needed to sleep. He just hoped that there would be some way to feed both of them this time of day, but he didn't want to make Bae worry about it. Once they were a bit more settled he could see about going to the store and buying a few snacks to keep in the room, but for now they would be at the mercy of the shelter staff. He did remember passing a dining room on the way in, but he was going to have to figure out the details of the schedule on the fly.

"Can I play on the swings?" Bae asked after a minute, and Bobby remembered the playground from the night before. Bae must have been watching the other children playing through the window.

"Of course you can," Bobby said. "Let's just get dressed and we can go downstairs."

Bae was thankfully old enough to get himself dressed with minimal help from his father, so it didn't take too long before both were ready to head downstairs.

The kitchen had a light turned on, and a pair of girls in their early twenties inside of it confirmed that they had missed breakfast but cereal was available for both father and son regardless of the time. These were apparently volunteers from the local college who came in to help the staff with preparing meals, a task that was especially crucial in this building where Bobby was the only proper adult. The two girls fussed sweetly over Bae and were kind enough to prepare the cereal for both of them after realizing that Bobby relied heavily on his cane.

"We don't get to see many children in this building," one of them explained as they giggled over Bae.

"Have you been working here long?" he asked, realizing that these two might be a valuable source of information on their new home.

"I have," one said. "My name is Mary, and this is Ariel. We're both studying social work at the college, but this is my third year and her first."

"How many other people live here?" he asked her as Bae tucked into his Fruit Loops. "We haven't seen anyone else yet."

"Well, it's Sunday," Mary said. "Most of the boys are asleep still or else at their jobs. It'll be a little busier on the other side with the kids in it. But in this building there are about a dozen other residents, although it can house quite a few more. Most of them are runaways of some sort, but there are some who came with their mothers and younger siblings."

"They're not allowed to stay with their families?" he said, a little bit shocked by that. It seemed abysmally unfair to him to separate them if that was true.

"They have the choice," she explained. "A lot of them do stay with their families, but some prefer being here. It's a lot less crowded and I think they get uncomfortable being in such close proximity to so many women. This place can sometimes get a little bit like a frat house without the beer," she smiled fondly before seeming to realize that she may have startled him. "Or...like a summer camp. They're good kids, but you know how boys are in groups."

He did, and he certainly didn't expect a house full of teenagers to be quiet. He just needed to make sure he kept a close eye on his son to keep him away from any bad influences.

"Are they in school?"

"Oh yeah," Mary replied. "And a lot of them work, too. One of the volunteers here helps you find a job if you need one, and there's another one who can help you get your son enrolled in school. The bus comes right to the front of the building and everything."

He thanked her for her information. A lot of it sounded familiar and he was sure the desk lady must have relayed a lot of it the night before when he'd been so tired. The girls reminded them both that there would be lunch of some sort at noon if they wanted and peanut butter and jelly if they missed it. He wasn't sure how much would be handled by staff and volunteers yet, but it did make sense that the social work students would be around. They probably got class credit for being there, and he couldn't begrudge it to them. The girls even took the bowls from them with a smile and popped them into the dishwasher, though he was sure that wouldn't be something he should count on happening too often.

Bae dashed outside ahead of his father and was already sitting on the swingset and kicking his feet to get himself going just the way they'd practiced at the park at home. the idea of _home_ hit Bobby like a fist. That wasn't home anymore, he realized. He'd spent years with Milah saving and working to try to make sure Bailey had a house to grow up in and now here they were in a shelter two states away. He'd left his job and most of their belongings behind and he wasn't sure where they'd ever find a place of their own again.

The absolute hopelessness of his situation washed over him. Maybe he'd made a mistake in all of this. He'd gambled Bae's future on this and he still had to file for a divorce and possibly go through a custody battle. God, he hadn't let himself think about custody yet. He absolutely couldn't afford it, and with being a single father would the courts even believe him about the abuse? She'd get unsupervised visitation at the very least and nobody would be there to protect his son. He shouldn't have left, should he?

He was struck with an overwhelming urge to call his wife. He'd never left like this before, she had to understand his concerns and maybe she'd be willing to try marriage counseling this time and they could make things work. The realization that he had no way to call sunk into him after a moment and left him clenching and unclenching his hands anxiously. Maybe once Bae was in school he could sneak away and give her a call and they could try to talk it out.

Bailey had gotten off the swing and was chatting with another child on the climbing tower. This little boy was a bit on the thin side and had wide eyes that looked like they'd seen too much. Bobby felt like he was looking into a mirror for a moment but he shook it off, glancing around for the child's mother. There were a handful of women scattered around the other side of the playground, each one watching the children intensely. Some stood alone, and a few were talking amongst themselves. He imagined there probably wouldn't be a safer place for a child to play than right here. That thought eased his worry a bit, because if nothing else here he didn't need to worry about Bae being left alone with his mother.

There was a small brunette woman standing a ways off holding a cigarette in her hand, though she didn't seem to be watching the children. He guessed she was probably a fairly recent addition as well, due to the bruises ringing her neck. She was watching him curiously, the way he'd seen Bae watch other children in the park sometimes when he wasn't sure how to approach them. He couldn't imagine why she'd be interested in talking to him, though.

Still, he found his attention drawn to her more and more as he watched his son playing. It was a strange sort of curiosity, but they were both in this place and he hadn't realized he was lonely until she'd started watching him. After a few more minutes of this, she made her way over to him slowly.

"Hi," she said, reaching into her jacket pocket to pull out half a pack of cigarettes. "Would you like one?"

"No, thank you," he said. "I don't smoke."

"Me either," she replied as she dropped hers to the dirt and stamped it out. "But it makes a good excuse for not talking to anyone else if you don't want to, and it's a good conversation starter if you need one."

He wasn't sure how to respond to that admission, so he said nothing.

"I'm Belle," she continued.

"Bobby," he said. "My son Bailey is the one in the green jacket."

"I don't have one," she said. "Which is why I wanted the excuse to be outside."

"Yeah?"

"It's hard to think with too many people around."

He wanted to point out he was people, but he also found it strangely comforting to have someone talking to him. He'd been afraid of the loss of normalcy, and this was weird and awkward but it was a good sort of awkward. It was almost like being a whole person.

"So what brings you here?" she asked him, and the world came crashing back in again. "You can feel free to tell me to go to hell," she continued. "It's just that this isn't my first time in and I don't remember ever seeing a man here before. You can probably guess what brought me in."

She said the last part while rubbing her neck idly in a way that made him want to pack her bags for her and send her away someplace she'd be safe.

"My son," he said softly. "I came home one day and he had a black eye."

"Oh," she breathed the syllable, looking back towards the playground. "His mother?"

"Yeah," he said, nodding a little. "She's never touched him before as far as I know, but let's just say it wasn't as surprising as it should have been."

"I'm sorry," she said, turning back towards him. "I shouldn't have pried."

"It's alright," he replied. "I imagine coming here is a pretty good indicator of what happened. What about you? Husband?"

"Boyfriend," she corrected a little bitterly. "I went out with some friends and stayed out later than I'd planned. It was my own fault for not telling him where I was."

"So he choked you?"

He couldn't wrap his head around the whole thing. She was so pretty, why did she stay with someone who could do that to her?

"He was drinking," she said. "I know it sounds awful when I say it like that. This time I'm not going back, though. I'm not going to let him talk me back into it."

"That's good," he said because he had no idea what else to say.

She didn't sound nearly as convinced as he thought she wanted to, and he had this vision in his head of her pretty blue eyes staring blankly at nothing. He shook the image away and sought out Bae almost on instinct. His son was chasing the other little boy around the playground. He'd gotten his son out in time. If nothing else, he'd saved Bailey.


	2. Chapter 2

Belle always felt guilty about being in the shelter. Her taking up a bed meant one fewer bed for the women who had families – for the ones who really _needed_ it. She wasn't really sure if she even belonged in here. Gaston frightened her sometimes, but she didn't think he meant it. He wasn't _trying_ to hurt her, he just lost his temper. These women were victims and she didn't really think of herself as one.

She knew that something was fucked up in their relationship. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that something was wrong when she'd been in a shelter twice before and gone back each time. She was so stupid, and she knew it – she hadn't been raised this way, her parents had been very happily married and nobody had ever laid a hand on her as a child. She'd been completely blindsided the first time he'd hit her after a stupid fight over something she couldn't remember. All she really remembered was following him into the bedroom of their apartment and him suddenly turning around and slamming her into into a wall so hard she saw stars. They stood there staring at each other for a moment and suddenly he stormed off and she heard the front door slam. She'd been completely stunned at the time, and when he returned hours later full of apologies and excuses it had been so easy to think it had been a fluke and would never happen again. Until, of course, it did.

A smart woman would have packed a bag that first night and moved out. A smart woman certainly wouldn't have stayed for five years and at least as many trips to the ER. To be honest she didn't really try to remember all of them. It all made her feel like the biggest idiot in the world to still be making excuses and still be in love with him but here she was yet again.

She saw the new man around once or twice, usually in the playground with his son. The boy started school not long after, though, and they started spending less time in the courtyard. Belle, by contrast, was spending a lot more of her time there. She hated being at the shelter, hated the shared bathrooms and the way everyone could look at her and just _know_ she was the kind of girl who let herself get into this kind of situation. Most of them had kids or tricky legal situations, she just had herself and no other excuse.

Gaston had paid all their bills, though. He'd had a good job and she had been a student when they met and it just made sense for her not to work once they moved in together and eventually he'd stopped paying her tuition. Why did she need to go to school, anyway? He swore he would always take care of her. The therapist who came in a couple times a week said that was called financial abuse, and that they could help her find a job or reconnect with her dad so she could get her own place.

Belle wasn't stupid, though. Her dad had enough problems without his daughter adding hers in, and there wasn't really a job market for three fourths of an English degree and no work experience. She was probably better off just trying to get Gaston to agree to couples counseling. Maybe he'd go for it this next time. Stranger things had happened, and he'd never hurt her like _this_ before.

She unconsciously rubbed her throat where the bruise was fading and turned her attention back towards her phone. Technically, it wasn't against the rules to have a private phone at the shelter but it was strongly discouraged but so was texting her boyfriend who had choked her so hard she had lost consciousness and woke up to him freaking out in the bathroom because he thought he'd killed her.

He'd scared himself pretty badly this time, too, and hadn't even argued with her too hard when she said he had to spend the night with a friend and let her clear her head. He'd just apologized and begged for her forgiveness before he got into his car and went off to stay with someone else.

He just loved her so much is all, and she made him so crazy. He just couldn't shake the thought of her flirting with some other guy while he'd been choking the life out of her. It wouldn't ever happen again. He always said it wouldn't ever happen again.

As soon as he had pulled out of their driveway she had grabbed her emergency bag from its hiding place and her purse and walked to the bus stop. She needed more than a night to forgive him for this one, and she thought he probably knew it.

She had her phone sitting in a book in her lap as she texted him back and forth. As long as she had a cigarette in her hand the few children on the playground would ignore her, and the mothers keeping watch mostly kept to themselves. She didn't want anyone to know what she was doing.

"Is this seat taken?"

Her head shot up at the sound of a man's voice, and she almost managed a smile as she nodded to the new guy – Bobby – and he dropped down next to her. She locked her phone where Gaston was begging her to come home so they could just talk about it like adults and closed her book on it.

"How are you settling in?" she asked Bobby. "Is your son liking the school?"

"He is," he replied. "He says his teachers are nice, and that's really about all I could have asked for."

"That's good," she said, at a loss for how to proceed. "I've heard good things about it."

He smiled, glancing toward her book and looked back at her quizzically.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" he said quieter this time.

"You can," she said. "But I won't promise I'll answer."

"That's fair," he replied. "And I hope you won't think I'm prying, I just...how many times have you been here before?"

She actually laughed at that for some reason, and she could see him recoil a bit. Shit, she shouldn't have done that. It was easy to forget he was like her.

"This is my third time _here,_ " she said. "But I've probably left to stay with friends or in a hotel a half dozen other times. What about you? Is this your first shelter?"

"Yeah," he confessed. "But ove left a few times before. Or she has."

"He's left a few times, too," Belle replied. "But he's always back the next day to apologize."

Bobby nodded sympathetically and she had forgotten how nice it was to talk to a man and not be afraid of him hurting her or causing her to be hurt.

"Does he do that often?" Bobby asked, gesturing to his own neck. "I mean, it just looks like it hurt."

"Not really," she said, pulling her sweater over her chest self-consciously. The bruises were mostly gone now, but she knew she still had the faded yellow outlines of Gaston's fingers on her throat. "Not like this, anyway?"

Bobby looked so stricken at what she'd said, she almost wished she hadn't told him anything. She hated the pity almost as much as she hated being hit.

"What about your wife?" she asked, deftly turning it back on him before he could push her in deeper.

"No," he said. "Well, rarely. She's more the verbal sort, although you saw what happened to Bae. _That_ was the first time anything happened to him, though. I would have left sooner otherwise."

Right. Because he wasn't the kind of idiot who kept texting a woman who put her in the hospital multiple times. What kind of woman kept doing that?

Her phone vibrated loudly in her book and she rushed to grab and silence it, replying to her fifteen missed texts with a quick _I'm busy_ before sliding it into her pocket with a mumbled 'sorry' to her companion.

"Is that him?" Bobby asked her.

"Yeah," she replied. "He wants me to come home."

"Oh," he replied. "Are you going to?"

"I don't know yet," she fibbed. She knew she'd be back. She'd keep going back because there was some part of her that was more scared of being alone than it was of Gaston and she couldn't figure out how anything would work if she left him. She loved him too much to let go.

"He's going to kill you," Bobby replied quietly. "You have to know that."

"Well what about you?" she snapped angrily. How dare he question her about this? "Are you going to go back to the woman who hit your son? You think that was really the first time or just the first time you couldn't deny it?"

He was shocked and she knew she should regret her words, but she was just so damn angry this time. Bobby recoiled again, and she wanted to apologize but he just nodded and stood up quickly as he could.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have...I'm so sorry."

He hurried away and she felt her face flaming as he did. The other women gathered in the courtyard were looking at them and whispering between themselves at her outburst. She was such an asshole, and she shouldn't have said what she did. She didn't belong here with the families and the people who were really going to leave.

She picked up her phone and quickly read through the twelve messages Gaston had sent her while she'd been yelling at that poor man and sighed. She never should have come.

 _Okay,_ she texted back. _I'll come home. You can pick me up at the library after work._

She quickly pocketed her phone again with shaking hands and stood to go collect her things. She had a few hours to pack and check out before she had to get to the library. Somehow, it all made sense this way. It was her only option.


	3. Chapter 3

Bobby hadn't seen Belle around the playground since he'd caught her with the phone. He wasn't sure if he should have told anyone about that, but if she really did leave then what could anyone have done to stop her? He certainly couldn't have done anything to save her. His priority had to be his son and Bae had started having nightmares. Bobby wished they could have postponed enrolling him in school, but at the time he'd just been hoping for a return to normalcy and school was what was normal.

There was a therapist who came around once a week, but it was a few weeks before an appointment could be made for either of them and he had to prioritize his son's well-being over his own. It was actually the day of Bae's appointment with Dr. Hopper that he next saw Belle. She got out of a taxi with a carry-on sized suitcase and vanished into the women's building while he was waiting for Bae to get off the school bus. He was actually relieved to see her, regardless of how she hadn't even acknowledged his presence. None of the other women had really warmed to his presence and as much as he loved his son, two weeks primarily in the company of a six-year-old lacked something. As nice as it was that his child was safe, he had begun to crave adult conversation.

"Hi, Dad!" Bae exclaimed as he stepped off the bus. "Wanna see what I did today?"

"I do," Bobby said, kneeling as well as he could to hug his child and also pick up the jacket Bae was dragging behind him. "But first you have to go see that doctor I told you about, okay?"

Bae nodded, taking his father's hand and following him to the administrator's office in the women's building that apparently served for the psychiatrist on the days he was available. They were greeted by an unassuming man with curly hair and glasses who took one look at Bae and smiled.

"Hello, I'm Dr. Hopper," the man said to Bae. "But you can call me Archie."

Bae greeted the doctor politely, and Bobby was glad that his boy had remembered his manners. No matter how bad the situation, there was still a little boy who had to be raised into an adult and he couldn't afford to lose sight of that.

"Bailey, why don't you wait here for a few minutes while I talk to your father?" the doctor said to Bae, gesturing the child to a worn looking sofa.

"The appointment was for Bae," Bobby said quickly, confused as to why he'd need to speak to the therapist himself.

"I know," Dr. Hopper said with a smile. "I just like to talk to the parents ahead of time so we can go over some things. It will only take a moment."

Bobby cast one last look at his son before following the doctor into the office.

"So what brings you both to the shelter?" Dr. Hopper said once both men were seated. "I can imagine the generalities, but I'd like to know specifically what kind of help Bailey might need."

It was beginning to get awkward to continually tell strangers these details of his life, but Bobby owed it to his son to make things right for him.

"It's his mother," he finally said to the therapist. "I came home from work one day and he had a black eye. Neither of them ever gave me a good answer as to where it came from."

"And you think she hit him?"

"I don't really know what to think," he admitted. "She'd never been violent with him before. To my knowledge, anyway."

"But you suspected enough to take him and come here," Dr. Hopper said. "So was that the only time she hurt him? That you know of?"

Bobby thought for a moment before finally nodding. He had to believe that, or else he was going to go insane.

"What about you?" Dr. Hopper asked.

"I've never hurt him," Bobby said instantly. "I _wouldn't_ ever hurt him."

"Oh, of course not," Dr. Hopper said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply. I mean, did she ever hurt you?"

That was a loaded question, wasn't it? There were definitely parts of their marriage he didn't like to think about, but that wasn't what was being asked about. This doctor was asking if he was a battered spouse, and having seen the bruises ringing Belle's neck and the way some of the women here flinched at loud noises he wasn't sure he could realistically claim that title for himself.

"Not badly, no," he said at last. "She threw things sometimes, but mostly she'd yell."

"What kind of yelling?" the doctor asked, glancing up from his notebook when Bobby didn't immediately answer. "Was it directed at Bailey or just you?"

"Just me," he said reluctantly. "It wasn't really all that bad."

"Mr. Rumsley, I'm sorry, I know this is difficult for you to talk about," Dr. Hopper said. "But it's important that I know what kinds of things your son has witnessed if I'm going to be able to help him."

He didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to risk the doctor's disapproval or being told he didn't belong here. He didn't want the other man to know the depths of how unsatisfied his wife had been with him. He hadn't wanted any of it to happen at all, though, and perhaps it was time he accepted that he wasn't destined to ever get what he wanted.

"Milah – my wife – she wasn't happy," he said at last. "Not with me, not with our lives…not with anything that wasn't her boyfriend by the end."

"She had a lover?" the doctor asked. "Does Bailey know?"

"I couldn't tell you," Bobby admitted. "I asked her to keep it out of the house and away from him, and as far as I know she did. But it turns out I didn't know a damn thing that was happening in my house."

"You said she yelled a lot?"

"She did do that in front of him," Bobby admitted. "Everything was always wrong. The house was be too filthy, dinner wasn't right, I didn't make enough money, I was useless, pathetic, a waste of a man, I couldn't…satisfy her."

He felt his face burning at the last but, and prayed the doctor wouldn't ask him to elaborate further. It had been bad enough to put voice to the insults, discussing them might destroy him.

"How much of that do you think Bailey heard?" Dr. Hopper asked, mercifully refraining for asking him to elaborate.

"I couldn't say," Bobby replied. "Some of it was in front of him, and our house wasn't that big. He's seen her throwing things at my head during fights. And, well, she stabbed me once."

"She stabbed you?!" Dr. Hopper's eyebrows shot straight up and he stared at Bobby as though trying to determine whether or not he was really serious.

"It wasn't too bad," he said, rolling up his sleeve so the doctor could see the scar in his forearm where she'd slashed him. "She'd been drinking, and we'd been fighting. I was able to get the knife away from her and call for help before it got too bad."

"And did you press charges?"

"No," he admitted. "Bae was home and I didn't want him to have to see his mother in jail. He'd already been through enough."

"Alright," Dr. Hopper said. "I think I'm about ready to bring Bailey in here. I would like to recommend that you make an appointment for yourself, though. I really think you'd benefit from discussing some of the abuse that you suffered in more depth."

"I'll think about it," Bobby promised, knowing full well he wouldn't. He had to find a job and file for divorce and a million other things that didn't leave him time for therapy. He needed to get back on his feet and get out of the shelter. There was really no two ways about it.

Bae seemed reluctant to be go alone with this stranger, but his father's reassurance that he would be right outside the door mollified him enough to follow the doctor for the rest of the appointment.

Bobby contented himself with making lists of all the things that needed to be done while he waited for his son. He knew custody needed to be established soon, because technically he had kidnapped Bae. He doubted Milah would call the police to look for them, time to think and distance having reminded him that she'd never really been happy when they were around anyway. She was likely partying with her friends under the assumption he'd be back soon. Once she realized he meant to stay away, though...he wouldn't put it past her to be that spiteful and vindictive.

The rest of the appointment was only another half hour or so, and Bae was quiet on the way back to their room. Bobby couldn't help but check the courtyard for Belle, but she hadn't seemed to make it downstairs yet. She wasn't there when he checked through the window while he helped his son with homework, or after dinner when Bae wanted to go spend fifteen minutes on the swings.

Bobby was starting to wonder if he had hallucinated her return, or if perhaps there was something really wrong this time. The last time he'd seen her, she had been half strangled before coming to stay. What had her boyfriend done to her this time?

His mind was running through the possibilities of what could have sent her back here, and each just set him further on edge. At last, when he was tucking Bae into bed he saw the telltale glow of a cigarette in the playground. He didn't usually leave his son alone at night, but it was still hours before he planned to go to sleep and the door could be locked from the outside. Bae would never miss him.

Belle was sitting on one of the swings in a pair of shorts and a sweatshirt when he found her. Her eyes met his and she looked startled, but didn't say anything when he came and sat on the swing next to her.

"I wasn't sure you'd be back," he said after a little while. She looked pale and tired, and there was a large bruise on her thigh peeking out just below her shorts, but otherwise she seemed alright.

"They couldn't keep me away," she said a little bitterly, staring into the smoke winding up from her cigarette. "Sorry for what I said last time, by the way. I was out of line."

"It's alright," he said. "It's been dull without you."

She smiled weakly but it was still a smile, and it still warmed his heart.

"I hope you weren't too bored," she said. "I know most of these women don't really know how to party."

He couldn't help laughing at that and that set her off giggling as well. It was nice to just have a conversation with an adult that wasn't about what a terrible husband he was. They sat quietly for a little while longer, and he glanced up at the sky above. The stars were brighter here than they had been at home.

"Can I ask you something?" she asked, interrupting his amateur astronomy. "It's kinda personal."

He nodded, not sure what else to do. She seemed strangely fragile now compared to the stubborn woman he'd met before and it worried him.

"When did you and your wife decide to have a kid?" she asked. "Like, what brought it on?"

"I don't really know," he said, wracking his brain for whatever he could remember of that decision. "We used to be happy, you know, and it was a choice we both made. Things didn't get bad until later, but when he was born it was the absolute best moment of my life. I wanted to live in that moment forever."

"Yeah?" she said quietly, and he knew she was probing him for more information. "Did you ever want another one?"

"I love him," he said at last. "More than I've ever loved another person. But when she had a scare recently I was relieved when the test came back negative. I couldn't justify bringing another person into that mess. That, and then Bae got hurt...it wouldn't have been right. It's bad enough doing this with him, I don't know how we'd survive with an infant. Or with her being pregnant, my God. Custody will be hard enough to manage as it is."

"I bet," she said, pressing her lips together and looking back out into the courtyard. "Do you ever wish he'd never been born?"

"Never," he said instantly. "I wish a lot of things. I wish he had a happy family, I wish he didn't have to go through all of this, I wish things were better for him. But like I said, I couldn't justify bringing another child into it. It's not right. None of it is."

"It sneaks up on you, doesn't it?" she said. "The bad parts, I mean. I remember when I was fourteen or fifteen reading _Othello_ in English and thinking it was just so beautiful in the end. He fucking kills her, and in my head the fact that she just goes with it without ever second guessing that she deserves to die and covers for him in the end was the most romantic thing I'd ever heard." She looked back at him with her blue eyes rimmed in red. "How fucked up is that?"

"You were a kid," he said. "And it's not your fault."

She snorted and looked away again.

"I'm not one anymore," she said. "And I'm still going through it over and over again. Desdemona only got smothered the one time. I've been strangled unconscious, kicked, slapped, broke four ribs, been slammed into walls, had my arm broken in two places, and once he held my face under water because I hadn't finished dinner by the time he got home. And every single time I went back to him." She paused, but didn't seem to be able to stop herself from talking and he wondered if she'd ever spoken these things out loud before. "I had _sex_ with him. Willingly. Like, he knocked me unconscious and I woke up and he apologized and we had sex – _good_ sex – and that would be the end of it. And the more I think about it, the more I think those were the only times I felt like he actually cared about me. The rest of the time I was only there to make his life easier, but after he'd hurt me he wanted to make it up to me and I liked it."

He couldn't think of what to say to her about it. He'd certainly had sex with his wife after things had gotten bad, but she'd also had at least one lover and he never got over feeling like he was something she endured because...he truthfully didn't know why she put up with him. He'd wondered that over and over again. Wouldn't she be happier if she just moved out and let them be?

"You think I'm an idiot," Belle said at last.

"No," he said. "I don't think anything. I think it sounds like an impossible situation and I don't know what I'd have done in your shoes."

"I had sex with him after I got out of the shelter last time," she replied, staring him dead in the eyes as though she was daring him to hate her or tell her that she'd been wrong. "I had sex with him last night after I'd already decided to come back."

"Why did you come back?" he asked, dreading the answer as much as he needed to know. She was clearly still very much attached to this man, and he couldn't think of what he could have done that would be so horrible as to drive her away again.

"The situation got unbearable," she said, dropping her cigarette into the sand and crushing it out. "If I'd stayed, he'd have killed me and in the end I guess I'm quite as in love as Desdemona was."

"That's not love," he said, thinking back to a time before when he had been happy and had thought that Milah had loved him. "I'm probably not the best expert on the subject, but I don't think love means letting yourself be destroyed."

"You're probably right," she said. "I've gotta go, though. I have something I need to do before bed."

She stood up and lingered for a moment at the swings before she finally took his hand, shocking him into looking up at her.

"Thanks for the talk," she said. "Your wife didn't deserve you."

He was shocked into silence by her words, and by the time he finally could have returned the compliment she had vanished into the other building and was as far out of reach as the moon.


	4. Chapter 4

It was another whole day before Belle felt strong enough to get out of bed and go downstairs. Everything in her hurt, and she just wanted to stay up there and waste away and pretend like the last few years had been some horrible hallucination or something.

Unfortunately, they had been all too real and she had the hospital bills to prove it. Things had been okay for a few days when she went home, but of course nothing good ever lasted for her. By day five he'd punched a mirror so hard it shattered and stormed out. She'd cleaned it up and made dinner and then he came home and things had been alright for a few more days.

Then it had gotten really, really bad.

She had known it was going to be a bad day the second he stepped foot in the house. She'd made a special dinner and was waiting when he came home. He was already in a bad mood, somebody at work having made a complaint that got him a write up from his boss.

Early on in their relationship she'd have tried to cheer him up, but by this point she usually just tried to stay out of the line of fire and hope it was directed anywhere else. It was never directed anywhere else. All it had taken was the littlest thing to set him off when he was like that, and she had picked up the wrong brand of whiskey when she'd been out earlier.

He'd pinned her to the floor and called her names, telling her that he knew she had been sleeping around and probably got her other boyfriend's favorite instead. Her denials meant nothing, and they both knew it. He was sure she'd been staying with this other man when she had been in the shelter, and she knew then that one of his friends had probably put this idea in his head and there was nothing she could do but wait it out and beg.

He pried her legs open and she had a very real fear in that moment that he would rape her and there really wasn't anything she could do to stop him if he tried. He was so much bigger than her.

"See what you're doing to me?" he screamed, holding her so hard it was painful but she didn't dare move. "You're driving me crazy!"

"I'm sorry," she sobbed through the pain in her thighs from his knees forcing her legs down. "I promise I'm not leaving again. I won't leave."

He had slammed her head into the floor until she saw stars and was so sure she was about to die that she fell limp and just accepted it. After that he got off of her and stormed into their bedroom, collecting all her shoes and throwing them into a pile in the backyard. He grabbed her arm and dragged her out there to watch the bonfire.

"Now you can't leave the house without me," he'd explained.

He saved one pair of sneakers and locked them in his car so she couldn't get to them if he wasn't home. After that he calmed down and they had her carefully planned dinner which tasted exactly like sawdust to her, though he seemed to enjoy it.

"Hey," he said when she went to clear the table, pulling her into his lap affectionately. "I'm sorry, babe. You just know how I get."

"It's okay," she said on reflex, because what else could she say? She was his prisoner now. She had tasted freedom and surrendered it for this.

She'd done the dishes quietly, every neuron in her brain screaming at her to get out. The door was so close, and all she had to do was swing it open and run…Where? He was bigger than her, stronger, and faster. He had a car and she didn't even have shoes. She had no money, no friends, and her father was in the next state and they hadn't talked since she dropped out of school. She was all alone, and Gaston was the only one who cared if she lived or died. That was a chilling thought.

That night he had wanted sex, and she had let him. It was easier to forget how badly her head still hurt from the beating earlier if it was all part of foreplay leading to this. That night he held her and whispered about how much he loved her and wanted to start a family with her. He wanted her to be there forever, for the rest of his life. He'd kill himself if she left again.

The next day he brought home a handgun and said it was for self-defense. He promised he'd show her how to shoot sometime. Then he let her borrow her shoes so she could go and buy the right whiskey.

He was going to kill her. The words just kept running through her head over and over again. He was going to kill her but she couldn't get away. He'd notice if she left with a bag, and he was timing her errands to make sure she didn't take too long.

It took her another full week before an opportunity to escape presented itself. One of the neighbors left a pair of muddy flip-flops in the trash. She snuck them out and hid them under the porch, and within two days she was gone. She had access to a checking account and state ID to pay for a few things like a doctor appointment at a clinic on the first day, but bus fare all but eliminated her cash on hand.

It had been enough to get her to the shelter, though. She had little else besides some of her clothes and a new pair of shoes. She didn't want him to see her shopping on the account, some part of her still trying to mollify him even though she knew there was no going back after this.

There was a lady who could help you find a job, but she only came once a week after she got off work at her real job. Belle had never been to see her before and had to wait for another woman to leave before she got to go in. It was a little disheartening to be told a local bar was looking for waitresses, but with no experience she was lucky there was even that available.

She was going to need clothes to interview in and bus fare to an interview and all of that cost so much money she wasn't even sure what she could do. By now he would have cancelled her checks once he saw what she was doing. It all felt so hopeless to need less than a hundred dollars and to not even have that much. She didn't even have the income to get a credit card or a loan.

She was sitting on a bench in the courtyard and debating the relative merits of prostitution versus panhandling when she saw Bobby approaching her. She was really, really not in the mood for company but she was even less in the mood to tell him she wasn't in the mood for company so she didn't stop him when he sat down next to her.

"No cigarettes today?" he asked with a little smile she couldn't quite return.

"I ran out," she admitted. "Yesterday was the last one."

"How are you feeling?" he asked her, looking worried at her flat affect and complete lack of hygiene.

 _Like shit._

"Fine. Thanks."

"That's good," he said, obviously uncomfortable already. "I didn't see you yesterday."

"Yesterday I was not fine,"she said simply, hoping that would be enough. She didn't really want to explain what had happened since her last stay in the shelter.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking at her a little sadly and like he really meant it. "I wanted to ask you something, though."

 _Please no, I can't do anything right now. I can't talk about it._

"Oh?"

"Yeah," he said. "I found a job at a construction company in the office."

"Congratulations," she said, trying not to feel too bitter about the whole thing. He was doing well, she was going to go live in a tent.

"The only problem is that I have to be there until five," he paused as though that made any sense at all to have as a problem. "Bae gets off the bus at four thirty."

"Oh?" she said. "Isn't there an after school program?"

She was sure there must be one, or else how did all the other women here mind their kids?

"There is, but if have to go to the school to get him and with my leg and the bus it would be really hard to manage," he replied. "I was wondering if you'd mind babysitting him in the afternoons. If pay you, of course. I don't have a lot, but it'd be something."

"Sure," she said quickly, trying bit too sound too desperate. "I can watch him."

"Good," he said, sounding relieved.

Even if it was five dollars a day that was twenty-five a week, and if she was careful and got lucky at a thrift shop that might get her a dress she could wear to get a job and bus fare to the interview. God, this was humiliating. She was a babysitter. She hadn't babysat since she was seventeen, and here she was a grown woman with no other job skills to speak of.

"I start on Monday," Bobby said. "Would that be a problem for you?"

"No," she said, doing some quick math. "I don't have anyplace else to be."

That seemed to satisfy him, and he thanked her before promising to introduce her to his son later. He mercifully left not long after, and she was left to her thoughts.

It was tempting to go back home and pretend like none of this had ever happened, but she had burned that bridge. He would know what she had done, and there was no going back. Her mind kept going back to that gun, too. She had known he was going to kill her someday, and definitely feared for her life before, but it had always been a far away risk. Something that was part of a nebulous future where she was lucky to be alive in the present. Seeing Gaston holding a pistol, though, brought that dark future to her front door. She would die by his hands. She was lucky she wasn't already dead.

The fact that he could beat her head against the floor and later that same day tell her he wanted her to have his child just made it worse somehow. They had discussed it before, but never so close to him hitting her and never so savagely. A baby would have just been one more piece of leverage he had over her, and someday if she was lucky she would have been Bobby on the swing set worrying over sharing custody with his abuser. She couldn't do that, couldn't inflict Gaston on a child.

The rest of the week slogged by slowly. She felt stronger by day three, but the fog over her head wasn't quite lifting. Still, she met Bae and practiced watching him on the playground a little bit. It felt so strange watching a child when she had almost been a mother. It would have been a trap, and she knew it, but some part of her still wanted to be trapped. Her cage hadn't been safe, but it had been comfortable. The devil she knew compared to the uncertainty of the real world.

Belle adjusted to babysitting well enough, and she came send close to crying when Bobby got paid and handed her $150. It was the most cash she'd held in her hands since she went to college, and that was pretty pitiful in and of itself.

It wasn't a lot for an adult without any other source of income, but it was enough to buy some things second hand and even if they didn't fit perfectly it was a strange feeling of being pretty just to try something on and see how it fit her. She splurged a little bit and got two dresses, one for job interviews and one just to have, as well as a few pairs of shoes to replace the ones Gaston had destroyed. It was nice to have things he hadn't paid for and that hasn't been chosen with an eye towards pleasing him. These were secondhand, but they were hers.

There weren't any bruises to cover up, either, and the feeling of the sun on her legs when she applied for the job at the bar cheered her up immensely. She could waitress at night and still watch Bae in the afternoon, and maybe save a little money and have some choices soon in where she went.

It was a good day as she stood at the bus stop after her interview. The manager had been optimistic, telling her experience wasn't really necessary just an attention to detail and a good memory and she had both of those. She would hear back by the end of the week.

She was back to the shelter in plenty of time to meet Bae when he got off the bus. Usually she'd help him with homework or watch him play with the other children, but today he had to meet with the therapist. She had gone back and forth on whether or not to schedule an appointment for herself with the doctor, but she felt so good lately it was hard to think about.

"Hi Belle!" Bae said cheerfully as he disembarked the bus.

"How was school?" she asked him, taking his backpack off his tiny shoulders and slinging it over one of hers. "Did you learn anything fun?"

"We talked about spiders and presidents," he replied.

"Not in the same class I hope," she said. "You've got to go see Dr. Hopper today, by the way."

Bae wrinkled his nose but nodded and held her hand as they crossed the street to the shelter.

"What'd you do today?" he asked.

"I went shopping," she replied. "And I may have gotten a new job."

"So you won't be babysitting me?"

"It'd be at night," she said. "So I can do both."

"Okay, good," he said. "Papa doesn't think we could get by without you."

She almost tripped when he said that, and she really didn't think that was meant for her ears.

"Yeah?" she probed, wondering if there was more to that.

"Yeah," he said. "Where will you be working?"

"I'm going to be a waitress," she said, deciding he didn't need all the details of what a cocktail waitress did. "I'll bring people their drinks."

"At a bar?" Bae asked and she looked at him in shock and nodded slowly. Why did he know that? "My momma likes bars."

She felt like she should have expected that, but she hadn't heard much about his mother except that she was sometimes violent. Poor kid, he didn't need all of that.

"Yeah?" she said. "Well, I don't like them too much. But grownups need to work."

He nodded, seemingly accepting that as a good enough reason for her to be there, and she handed him off to the doctor easily and settling into a sofa to wait for him. She was so close to something good, she could taste it.

Belle had the waitressing job. It wasn't much, but it felt like a victory. It was something of her own, and nobody could take it from her. She used some of her babysitting money to buy the black shirt she would need for her uniform and arrived to be trained by a leggy brunette named Ruby. She was to shadow the other woman for a few nights before she'd be left alone, and having been out of the workforce for so long Belle was grateful for that safety net.

Waitressing was easy enough to start. It wasn't a particularly busy night, but keeping track of all the different tables was a little confusing. As the night went on, it thinned out a bit but the remaining patrons were getting drunker and she was getting more tired. It would have probably been okay, except one of the patrons was getting handsy as he drank.

She knew how to dodge unwanted attention, but as the night went on it was getting more and more difficult. She couldn't even think about it, she just had to keep ducking his hands and bringing drinks.

Belle had ducked out to the restroom and was coming back through the narrow hallway when the drunk guy finally caught her.

"Hey," he slurred, leaning on the wall and blocking her progression to the safety of the bar. "What are you doing after this?"

"I have to get back to work," she said as firmly as she could manage.

"It'll be okay," he replied. "I won't tell."

He was trying to maneuver her back against the wall, and she was trying to maneuver her way past him, and it wasn't working. She felt panic beginning to rise as he pressed in on her, and suddenly her vision was going blurry at the edges. There was no way out, she was trapped. What could she do?

"Keith, what the hell?" Ruby's voice came from behind the stranger as the other waitress ducked under his arms and pulled Belle into her side.

"Don't be jealous, Rubes," the man said. "You know you're my best girl."

"You've had enough tonight," Ruby replied, smacking his hand away when he reached for her. "Go sit outside and sober up or I'm going to call you a cab."

He protested, but let Ruby bully him out the door. Belle's knees were shaking and she was leaning against the wall by the time the other woman returned to her.

"Don't let him bother you," she said. "He's a creep, but he's mostly harmless. You just have to tell him to knock it off."

Belle nodded and tried to catch her breath as her adrenaline started to settle down.

"Are you okay?" Ruby asked her.

"Yeah," Belle replied. "I need to get back to work."

"Okay," Ruby said. "The people at the back table need a pitcher of beer and some glasses."

"Right," Belle said, psyching herself up as she headed back to the bar and poured a pitcher with shaking hands.

He'd been so close with the sour smell of beer and liquor wrapping around her and she could taste bile and the heavy scent of alcohol in the back of her throat. She got the pitcher on the table, but she must have tipped it, and the entire thing went crashing to the floor along with the glasses she'd had in her arms.

"Oh my God," she exclaimed, dropping quickly to the floor to collect the broken glass. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

She was frantically trying to clean the mess up when Ruby came over with a towel and joined her. She couldn't stop apologizing, even as the other waitress kept insisting it wasn't that big a deal.

"Belle," Ruby finally said, grabbing her hand. "Go sit down for a few minutes. I'll take care of it."

Belle was shaking even harder as she went into the office and dropped onto the sofa back there. She'd messed up so badly, what had she been thinking spilling an entire pitcher? And she'd broken glasses – was it two or three? She couldn't afford to replace them. She was going to get fired on her first day. What was she going to do? She wasn't qualified for anything else, and she couldn't just keep babysitting for the rest of her life.

Ruby came in after a few minutes and Belle was still feeling that sick-to-her-stomach adrenaline level. She wanted to curl up on a ball and die.

"You feeling better?" Ruby asked.

"I can pay for the glasses," Belle said softly. "It was an accident."

"That?" Ruby said dismissively. "That was barely a mishap. I've seen girls take out entire boxes of glasses. It happens."

 _Oh._

"Okay," Belle nodded, feeling the stress starting to lift just a little bit. "I'm sorry. I've just...I don't know. I'm new to this."

"Don't worry about it," Ruby replied. "The night's almost over, anyway. Why don't you go and wash dishes until we close?"

"I can do that," Belle said. "I'll do better tomorrow."

She had to.


	5. Chapter 5

Once he'd gotten paid, Bobby had to find a lawyer. One of the women who worked at the shelter was able to give him a referral to an attorney who offered sliding scale payment for people at the shelter which made her perfect. Belle had the night off from her real job, so he'd gotten her to mind Bae an extra hour while he went to the attorney after work. Her name was Kathryn Nolan, and her office was small, but her receptionist was friendly and didn't seem at all shocked to see him come in from the shelter. It felt safe there in a strange way. She was going to be on his side, and it had been so long since he'd felt like anyone else was.

"So do you have any documentation of his injuries?" she asked after he'd explained the situation with Bae. "Photographs, doctor's notes, a police report?"

"No," he said. "I didn't think of any of that."

"Okay," she said. "Are there police reports for anything else?"

"I did call the police when she stabbed me," he said. "And I had to go to the hospital for stitches."

"That's good," she said. "We can try and get ahold of those records for you. I know you didn't press charges for the stabbing incident, but has she been arrested for anything else?"

"Not really," he said. "She's spent the night in jail a few times for public drunkenness, but nothing violent and nothing long term."

"Well, it speaks to her being an unfit parent," Kathryn replied. "It makes your case look better, at any rate."

"So you think I have a case?"

"I won't lie to you, it's going to be hard," she said calmly. "I think you have an excellent case for primary custody, but sole custody is a longshot and it's going to be a long and expensive one at that."

He felt relieved just to know he wasn't totally hopeless, though the idea of split custody terrified him.

"I can't let her have visitation," he said. "I can't let him be there alone."

"I understand," she said. "But you don't even know for sure what happened when he was hurt, and you don't have any proof. Especially since Bailey still won't talk about it."

The fact that Bae still wouldn't say how he'd gotten the black eye did not actually make Bobby feel any better about the situation they found themselves in. It had been almost a month now and whatever it was had apparently traumatized him worse than Bobby had feared.

"He's been in therapy," Bobby said. "Hopefully he'll talk about it soon."

"Well, when that happens let me know," she replied. "But honestly, your best chance is if you can convince her to sign over custody."

"I don't think she will," he said. "I don't think she likes being a mother, but I don't think she'll agree to anything to help me."

"Is there something you can offer her?" the lawyer asked. "I've seen parents buy custody for as little as $15,000."

He felt the wind be knocked out of his sails a little bit. He had some savings, but it wasn't nearly that much and even if he could scrounge the money up it would mean spending everything he'd earmarked for getting them settled into this new town. He must have shook his head _no_ or in some way indicated his shock at the price.

"Is there anything we could offer her?" she said. "Anything valuable at all?"

"There's the house," he finally said. He'd never really counted it as being _his_ because he had left, but the mortgage was in both of their names. "It's not completely paid for, but there's equity in it."

"That's exactly the kind of thing I was talking about," she said, sounding excited. "Would you be willing to give her that if it meant full custody?"

"Yes, of course," he said. He'd trade anything for custody.

"That's precisely the sort of thing I like to hear," she said, scribbling something onto a notepad. "I'll send her over our offer and see what she says, but I'm definitely optimistic."

"What if she decides to fight?" he asked, not sure he wanted to know his odds in court.

"You're asking for custody, so that usually works in a father's favor," she said evenly. "But right now she's in a house and you're living in a shelter. You've got a job, but you're going to need to get a car and someplace to live. Sooner is better than later."

He nodded, trying not to feel completely bowled over. He'd knew he needed to find a place, but getting an apartment or a rental house would require furniture and deposits and insurance, and he'd have to find a new babysitter. The car was going to mean getting a local driver's license and insurance. It was a long list of things to do, but he was going to have to do it for Bae.

It was a beautiful day, and Bae was sitting on a bench with Belle doing his homework outside when Bobby got back to the shelter. They were both sitting cross legged leaning over his workbook and talking about his math problems. It was almost a shame to interrupt them, but the look on Bae's face when he ran to hug him was enough to warm his heart.

"Can I play with my friends?" Bae asked, flashing giant puppy eyes and looking over to where a couple of the other children were hanging off of monkey bars and storming some imaginary castle.

Bobby glanced over at Belle, unsure of how much homework Bae had left or how long he'd been working.

"He only has a few math problems left," she said. "And we already did his vocabulary words."

"Please, Papa!" Bae begged, clinging to Bobby and hanging desperately from his hand.

"Half an hour," Bobby said, smiling as his son ran off to the playground equipment to join the other children.

"How was your appointment?" Belle asked once Bae was out of earshot.

"As good as I could have hoped," Bobby replied, sitting in the spot his son had just vacated. "She's optimistic, though I'm probably going to have to give up the house."

"I'm sorry," she said. "That must be hard."

"It's nothing to be sorry about," he replied. "It's a small price to pay to have this all done with, really."

She nodded and curled her knees up to her chest, and they sat in silence for a bit. He wondered what she was thinking and if her thoughts lined up with his. He was oddly unsettled by the idea of starting his life over. It was one thing to come here – the shelter was a transitional space. It was frightening to have come, but as long as he was in it he still had some hope of...what? Things going back to normal? A resolution? He didn't want either of those things. He couldn't go back, and he'd known that to begin with. He couldn't raise a son there.

"The lawyer wants me to start putting down roots," he said after a little while. "Get a permanent place to live and a car, all that."

"Yeah?" she said, looking over at him. "That'll be good for you both. Where are you looking?"

"I have no idea yet," he confessed. "I'd like to keep Bae in the same school if possible, but beyond that I don't know the area."

"Stay off the south side," she replied. "There's a lot of crime over there. And the northeast is nice, but everything is really expensive. You should be fine besides that, though."

"Thanks," he said. "That's really helpful. You've been here awhile?"

"Since I was eighteen," she said. "I came for college and just stayed."

"Yeah? What was your major?"

"I have three years of an English degree," she said, glancing away in embarrassment. "I uh, met him sophomore year. He made enough that he didn't think I needed to work."

And she'd dropped out. He had the strangest urge to go back in time and warn her off that path, but then again if he could go back in time he would do a lot of things differently himself. He'd have left before Bae was hurt, for one thing.

"How's your job going, by the way?" he asked her. "We haven't really talked about it."

"Pretty good," she replied. "I mean, it's physically demanding but the tips are great. And it's nice to be doing something, you know?"

"I do," he said. "I didn't have much school myself, but I've always been good with my hands. When I hurt my leg I had to be out of work for awhile, it was a pretty difficult time."

"What did you do before?"

"I used to do cabinetry," he said. "Custom kitchen installations, that sort of thing."

"Is that how you hurt your leg?" she asked, glancing down briefly. He'd mostly stopped feeling self-conscious about it since his accident, but it still wasn't something he liked talking about. Still, she knew worse stories and he knew worse about her.

"It is," he said at last. "It's kind of embarrassing. I was walking through a construction site with my assistant and we were carrying a pretty big granite countertop between us. I was walking backwards and stepped in a hole and the counter fell on top of me."

"Oh my God," she said. "That sounds awful."

"It wasn't so bad," he said. "But it never did heal right. So I had to go on disability for a little while, and things were pretty hard...I think that's when my wife started to lose her patience for me, really."

He'd been laid up while he did physical therapy, and disability and worker's comp had only gone so far. Money had been tight, and Milah hadn't handled it very well. She'd started drinking more, and Bae had barely been in preschool and needed a lot of attention and care. She seemed to resent every new responsibility she'd had to take on to keep them all above water. Sometimes he wondered what would have happened if he hadn't been hurt. They had been happy before, and maybe they could have stayed that way. It was a dangerous line of thought. He'd been down that road a thousand times before, and every time it just came back to that one moment having ruined his entire life.

Bobby was startled out of his thoughts by Belle's hand coming to rest on his, and he was so shocked that he almost jumped out of his skin. He wasn't used to being touched by people besides Bae, and certainly not by women. He stared at her hand where it sat on his gently – it was comforting, but strange. He looked up to her face, trying to discern what she was doing and she just looked sad for him. He shouldn't want to accept her pity, but he hadn't realized how desperate he was for contact until she was touching him. On a whim, he moved his thumb from beneath her hand and placed it over her fingertips. She smiled, and he smiled back, and for just a little bit he felt blissfully...normal.

The moment only lasted a few heartbeats before Belle slipped her hand away and averted her eyes. She started folding up Bae's homework into his books and marking his place and Bobby understood. It had been a little bolt of lightning but it was over now, and he didn't know what to do now that the moment had passed.

He couldn't stop rubbing his fingers together, trying to recreate the feeling of her hand on his. She was looking down into her lap and he was suddenly terrified she was going to walk away. He wracked his brain trying to come up with something to say to distract her from leaving.

"Do you want to finish your degree?" he asked her at last. "Since you were so close to completing it, I mean."

"I'd like to," she replied with a little smile. "It's really expensive, though. I don't know for sure what I'm going to do yet. But I like waitressing for now."

"I'm glad," he said. "You deserve to enjoy something."

She smiled at him again, and this time it reached her eyes. It was nice to see her smile.


	6. Chapter 6

Belle was getting her shit together. She'd gotten a library card and actually left the shelter to pick up a few books. It had been a long time since she'd felt the freedom to just go someplace without needing to explain herself. There was no Gaston here to ask why she'd been going out or when she'd be back, or insinuate she was having an affair. She'd still caught herself a couple times trying to put a book back because Gaston wouldn't approve, but when she'd realized what she was doing she'd made a point of defiantly taking those.

By the time she got back to the shelter, she had a tote bag laden with classics and a few humor novels, too. It was more than she thought she could read before the due date, but she was excited to try some of her old interests and see if any of them could help her get back to the woman she had been before.

By the weekend, Belle didn't have to worry about babysitting, though she still had to work on Saturday. Sundays, though, were hers and hers alone. She amused herself by sitting out in the courtyard reading. Children were playing happily nearby, but she was safely ensconced under a tree. Close enough to feel the safety of having people around, but far enough apart that she didn't have to feel any pressure to talk to people. She was three very enjoyable chapters into _The Princess Bride_ when Bailey ran up to her and fell into the dirt beside her.

"Belle!" he chirped. "Guess what!"

"What?" she asked, closing her book over her finger and glancing around to see where his father was. She caught sight of him approaching them and smiled.

"We got a car!" Bae said. "It's really big."

"Did you?" Belle asked, glancing between father and son. "What kind is it?"

"Dark red," Bae said and Belle looked to Bobby for clarification.

"It's a used Cadillac," he said. "The previous owner had to go to a nursing home and her son was selling it. It's old, but not too many miles."

"That's great," she said, though she was a little jealous. "Are you guys going to celebrate?"

"We're going to a movie," Bobby replied. "We were actually about to leave when Bae saw you."

"Papa, Belle should come," Bae said before turning back to her. "Belle, you can come."

Belle glanced over at Bobby and he was looking at her with the same vague terror she felt. It was one thing to go to work knowing that Gaston wouldn't dare darken the door of a dive bar where people could potentially _see_ him or to the library when he'd never been much of one for books. But a movie theater...she could potentially run into someone she had known in her life before. And to have Gaston find out she'd been in the company of a man?

"I probably shouldn't," she said, looking at her book. "I got a lot of books from the library this week."

"You _have_ to," Bae protested. "Papa said I could have popcorn and I'll share with you."

She looked up to Bobby hoping for some backup but he seemed just as unsure of how to proceed as she felt. He was her friend, but they were the sort of friends who chatted for a half hour or so a day about work or neighborhoods he might want to move to. They would occasionally discuss their situations, but it was one of the few things they had in common. It hadn't even occurred to her that they would continue to be friends after he left the shelter, to be honest. The idea of going someplace else with him made it all seem more permanent.

"Bae," Belle said as gently as she could. "I have to be very careful about where I go so that my boyfriend doesn't find out where I am."

She didn't want to scare him, but she also knew that he was aware of why she was there (though not the details) and there was no point in making him think it was a rejection of _him._ Bae was pouting a little bit and clearly it hadn't occurred to the child that she could be in any danger.

"We can go to another theater," Bobby said at last. "Or the drive-in."

"Yeah, Belle!" Bae exclaimed, suddenly cheered up. "We can go to the drive-in! No one can see you there!"

She felt her resolve weaken a little bit, though the idea was still a little scary. Maybe it would be nice to get away from her real life for a little while, though.

"Alright," she said at last. "I need to get my purse, though."

"We're not in a hurry," Bobby said. "Take your time."

She nodded and went back to her room to put away her book and pick up her purse before rejoining them. She wasn't going to let them pay for anything if she could possibly help it. She didn't need to be indebted to anyone, it could only end in tears.

The drive-in turned out to be a double feature, and Bae fell asleep in the back seat before the second movie even started.

"He's an exciting date, isn't he?" Belle asked as the little boy snoozed.

"Very much so," Bobby replied. "I'm looking forward to trying to get him into bed without waking him up or he'll never get back to sleep."

"Will you need help?"

"It should be okay," he said. "I've moved him before, and I don't think they'd let you into the dormitory anyway. Worst case I'll see if one of the teenage boys we live with can help move him."

"How are you guys doing with them, by the way?"

"Well enough," he replied. "They're boys, and they're damaged, but most of them have younger siblings and they know how to act around little kids and the rest give him a wide berth."

"That's good," she said. "To be honest, I've never spent much time around them because of the way the buildings are set up. But then I don't spent much time with anyone, I guess."

"Most of them have families in the other building," he said. "But some are there because they were kicked out of their homes for whatever reason. I think those are the ones that make me feel the saddest. They really have nobody and nowhere to go."

She knew the feeling, but didn't want to say it out loud. They were having a nice night, and she just wanted to pretend like she knew what the hell she was going to do as far away as next week, never mind a year from now.

"That is sad," she said. "But you'll be out soon! Are you excited?"

"Sort of," he said with a sigh. "I should be, but trying to find a house is so stressful. I have this fear that I'm going to pick something awful."

"You can't pick something that bad," she said. "Isn't anything better than the shelter?"

"Yeah, I suppose. It will be nice to have conversations at the table that don't revolve around video games, at least."

There was a weird note to his voice and she decided to change the subject before it went too far.

"Have you been to the library?" she asked him. "I think Bae would like it. There's storytime and stuff."

"Not yet," he glanced over to her with a grin. "I take it you enjoyed it?"

"Yeah," she said. "I used to read all the time but I sort of got away from it lately. I thought it might be nice to take it back up again."

"That's probably a good idea," he said. "You should do things you like."

"What do you like to do?" she said. "I mean, besides work and Bae you don't really do much, do you?"

"I like to be with my son," he replied with a shrug. "But I do miss working with my hands sometimes."

"Yeah?" she asked, shifting in her seat to look at him. "Are you telling me you're handy?"

"A little," he admitted with a pink blush just visible on his cheeks. "I used to have a workshop at our house. I'd do wood carvings and things like that. Nothing incredibly ornate, but little jewelry boxes, things like that."

"How did you get into that?"

"I've done it since I was a teenager," he said. "I just like making things. It's something I can have control over, you know?"

"I do," she said. "It was your safe place."

"I guess so," he said. "I just never really thought of it that way."

"I think most of us have something like that," she said. "Some kind of escape when things got too bad, you know? Otherwise I don't think we'd have survived what we did."

"What was yours?"

"At first it was books," she said. "I used to spend whatever time I could get to myself buried in a book. The worse things got in my life the cheesier and sappier the books."

"What about towards the end?"

"Towards the end…" she thought for a little while. The memories weren't always nice, and it was so much more raw and painful to think about. "By the end, he was taking up more and more of my time and my life. I think the only thing that kept me sane was having tea, weirdly enough."

"Tea?" he repeated, sounding a little incredulous. "Like, the drink?"

"I know, it's strange," she said. "It feels silly to even say it. But yeah, I used to buy myself these fancy teas and I'd keep them in the pantry and every day after he left for work I'd go in there and spend a few minutes just smelling them and deciding which one I wanted and then I'd go through this whole ritual of brewing it and have a cup before I started whatever else I had to do that day. It was entirely self-indulgent and I loved it."

"That sounds really nice," he said. "I don't blame you for holding onto it."

She took a breath and tried to force her muscles to relax at the memory of her little moments in the pantry. She didn't want to think about how much of her stupidly expensive tea had been left behind when she ran, or how long it would be before she could afford anything like them again. It had been worth it to get out with her life, and she had to remember that.

"Can I ask you a question?" he said, waiting until she looked at him and nodded before he continued. "Do you find it hard to be around men?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, although she was pretty sure she understood what he was asking. Mostly she was curious as to _why_.

"I mean, after everything that's happened," he paused and sort of gestured towards her, "aren't you ever frightened?"

"Sometimes," she said, trying to decide how to explain it. "Mostly at work if they're a lot bigger than me. Or drunk. Or both."

"I can't imagine you run into many men that aren't at least one of those things."

"It's not all the time," she said. "Some people just... I get this feeling now like I don't want to be around them. But not all of them, and I'm getting better at avoiding the ones I don't like. Anyway, I think it's important not to let myself be too afraid. My mother always said to do the brave thing and bravery would follow."

"I like that," he said. "Has it worked?"

"Well, the last time I really followed that advice was to drop out and move in with him," she replied. "So not great so far, but I'm doing better now."

"You don't think about going back?"

"Do you?" she shot back, because she didn't want to admit that she thought about it daily. It was getting easier, but it was still there.

"I don't think anyone wouldn't," he replied. "If for no other reason than because I'd worked so hard to build that life. But I can't let myself put Bae through that again. It's not good for him to have so much upheaval."

"You do what's best for your child," she said. "Anyone would do that."

He nodded and smiled at her understanding, but she was feeling her stomach doing flips at the turn their conversation had taken. The traumas were all still so fresh, and picking at them like this still hurt.

"What's wrong?" he asked nervously and she felt the gut punch of guilt for having worried him.

"I'm just tired," she fibbed. "Bae probably has the right idea."

He looked over his shoulder at the little under an afghan in the backseat.

"It is late," Bobby said. "We can leave if you'd like?"

"Oh, no," she replied. "I'm fine. Really."

He looked at her like he wasn't quite sure if he should believe her, but she didn't want to inconvenience him, either. He'd been nice enough to bring her she didn't want to ruin the evening by being stressed out and sad.

"It's not a big deal," he said. "If you want to go we can go."

"If you want to stay we can stay," she replied.

He looked at her and opened his mouth and then stopped and just stared and she realized what they'd been doing – trying to make the other one happy to avoid being yelled at.

"I'm sorry," she said on instinct.

"It's okay," he said before the words were even out of her mouth. "This is going to take some work, isn't it?"

"What do you mean?"

"One of us needs to learn to make a decision," he replied. "If we're going to be friends, anyway."

She wanted to ask if that's what they were, but at the same time she didn't dare jinx it. It had been a long, long time since she'd had a friend who was just _hers_. Any that she had before Gaston had eventually drifted away and she had no doubt in her mind the ones they had shared as a couple were going to take his side.

"I'm not that tired," she said instead. "But I'm also not really watching the movie. If you are, we can stay and if you want to go back we can."

"I haven't been watching it either," he replied. "But I did enjoy talking to you."

"Okay," she said. "Then we can stay."


	7. Chapter 7

Please be aware that there is discussion of a past abortion in this chapter.

* * *

Bae didn't always like going to see the doctor. His papa said that it would help him feel better but he was never sure what he was supposed to feel better about. He missed his momma and he loved his papa and he liked his school. His teacher was nice, and he liked living in a place with a swingset and slides and lots of other kids to play with. He missed having his own room sometimes, but being with Papa more was nice, too. He didn't really like going to the doctor, but he did like the coloring books there and he was working on a picture of dogs playing and being very careful to stay inside the lines like they'd been practicing at school.

"How is your picture coming?" Dr. Archie asked him and Bae held it up. "That's very good," Dr. Archie said. "You have a very good imagination."

"Thank you," Bae said because it felt like a compliment and Papa said that you should thank people for compliments.

"Do you like dogs, Bae?"

"Yeah," Bae said. "Papa says I can have one when I'm old enough to walk it."

"Does he? That's good." Dr. Archie said. "I like dogs, too. I have a dalmatian at my house. His name is Pongo."

Bae found the black crayon so he could make one of the dogs on his page a dalmatian. It would just need spots.

"You are a very good colorer," Dr. Archie said as Bae started putting spots on his dog. "Did you used to do that at your old house?"

"Sometimes," Bae said. "Papa kept all my crayons in an old cookie tin, so I had a lot of them and he'd hang my pictures on the fridge. I like to draw, too."

"Do you miss your crayons?"

Bae didn't like to think about it too much, because he did miss his crayons. And he missed his books and his toys, too. He nodded and found the blue so he could color the sky. It needed clouds.

"What else do you miss?" Dr. Archie asked and Bae shrugged. He didn't want to talk about it.

"Bae," Dr. Archive said. "You remember what we talked about your first day? About how this is a safe place to talk about your feelings?"

"Yeah."

"You know that there's nothing you can say that will make me like you less or that I'm gonna tell anybody else about," Dr. Archie said as he sat down on the floor where Bae was coloring and got a page from the stack of coloring sheets and picked up a crayon. "If there's anything you'd like to discuss, I'm here to listen. Or we can just color, if you'd like."

Bae nodded and kept coloring. He didn't want to talk about it yet. He just wanted his old room back and his Papa and Momma to be happy. He didn't want to see Momma's friend anymore. He didn't want to have to keep secrets, but he didn't want to get in trouble and Momma said that Papa would be mad if he knew Bae had seen her friend. It was supposed to be their little secret. Like how she'd bought him ice cream after, and how he hurt his eye. He was just so tired of secrets.

"Do you like having secrets?" Bae asked.

"Not always," Dr. Archie said. "Everything you tell me is a secret though, and I don't mind those kinds. But sometimes when I'm helping grown-ups they tell me not nice secrets and those are hard."

"What do you do to make it feel better?"

"Well, it depends on what kind of secret it is," Dr. Archie looked up quickly then went back to coloring a tree. "I had to go to a lot of school to learn about different kinds of secrets and what to do about them. Do you have a secret you need help with?"

Bae shrugged again and focused more on his dogs. They had a ball with a star on it and he was trying to make the star perfect and yellow. Stars should be yellow.

"Maybe we can figure out how to deal with your secret," Dr. Archie said. "Did somebody ask you to keep a secret for them?"

"Yeah," Bae said. He felt real quiet now. He didn't like secrets.

"Was it a grown-up?" Dr. Archie asked and Bae nodded. "You know that you never have to keep a secret for a grown-up. They shouldn't have asked you to keep it for them."

"I wasn't supposed to see."

Dr. Archie put his crayon down on the table and was looking at Bae now.

"What weren't you supposed to see?"

Bae shook his head no, he didn't want to tell on his Momma.

"Did someone tell you that you'd get in trouble for telling?"

Bae nodded. He couldn't talk because the words were right there ready to fall out of him. It was hard keeping secrets.

"You're not going to be in any trouble for telling me," Dr. Archie said. "My job is to be on your side no matter what. Who told you not to tell?"

"My Momma did," Bae said finally. "I wasn't supposed to be awake and I saw her with her friend."

"And what were they doing?"

"I don't know," Bae confessed, starting to sob as the words fell out of him. "They didn't have all their clothes on and when they saw me they yelled and then he came over and slammed the door and it hit me and it really hurt and then I hid in my room and then I heard yelling and then Momma came and got me and told me it was a secret and that Papa couldn't know or he'd be mad and I don't know what they were doing but I didn't mean to see it I promise!"

"It's not your fault," Dr. Archie said. He handed Bae the box of tissues he kept on the table. "But it's okay to cry. Your momma shouldn't have told you to lie. That wasn't fair for her to do."

Bae nodded and rubbed his eyes with a tissue. It felt nice to not be in trouble.

"Was that how you got your black eye?" Dr. Archie asked and Bae nodded again. "What do you think would happen if you told your papa what happened?"

Bae shrugged, but thought about it. Momma said he'd be mad, but Papa was never really mad with him. And he'd been really worried about Bae's face after he got hurt.

"Do you think maybe your momma was trying to keep your papa from finding out because she was doing something wrong?"

"Yeah," Bae said at last. He didn't like thinking like that, because mommas were supposed to do right things but his was bad.

"What do you think would happen if you told your Papa?" Dr. Archie asked. "Do you he'd be angry with you?"

"No," Bae said. "He'd be sad."

"Why do you think that?"

"He's always sad when Momma is bad."

"Is your momma bad a lot?"

Bae nodded. His momma had hurt his papa a lot, and Bae knew you weren't supposed to throw things or play with knives. He always listened to his teachers when they talked about playing nice with other people in school and about how to be safe. Bae had tried to tell Momma about it, but she always yelled and then left and Papa would tell him it wasn't safe to do that. Bae just didn't understand why she didn't listen to him when he _knew_ she was doing the wrong thing.

"Do you think you should tell your papa what you saw?" Dr. Archie asked. "If you wanted to do it I could have him come to one of your appointments and then we can both tell him."

"No," Bae said. "I don't want to."

"Okay," Dr. Archie said. "You don't have to. But will you think about it for me? I think he's really scared about how you got hurt, so he'd like to know what happened."

Bae nodded and started drawing bird in the sky over his dogs. It wasn't really in the picture, but his teacher had shown him how to make a bunch of birds if you drew a big V and made the sides bend a little. He really liked his teacher.

Choosing a home was proving to be harder work than the car had been. Bobby wanted to get into an actual house, but it was looking more and more likely that they'd be in an apartment for at least a year or two until he could find a better job. Office work at the construction company paid decently but it was barely going to be enough to keep them afloat. He cursed his injury every day now, if he could still go out on work sites he could be making so much more than he was and they could maybe have a comfortable life again. As it was, he couldn't see any way to really claw themselves back to the lives that they'd had before. Maybe it had been a mistake to leave after all.

Bae was doing well enough, at least. The visits with the doctor were helping him and he liked his school and his routine. He didn't talk about his mother much, and Bobby wasn't sure if that was good or not. He knew he couldn't push, he had to give his son space and follow his lead about what he wanted to discuss, but it was miserable wondering what traumas Bailey had experienced in the meantime. It was terribly easy to let his imagination run away with itself, which was why he was laying in bed not sleeping at two am on a Saturday morning when he saw his cell phone light up.

He'd purchased a prepaid phone when he started working. It was mostly to get calls from Bae's school if there was an emergency and the shelter workers had never said anything about it. Nobody even had the number besides Bae's school, his work, and Belle. So when he picked it up, he wasn't surprised to see it was a text from her.

 _Are you awake?_

 _Yeah what's up?_ He replied, burying the phone under his blankets so as not to wake Bae. She had never ever texted him before, and he hadn't even been sure she still had her phone.

 _I need a ride home. Something bad happened. I can pay you. Please hurry._

That had him instantly on alert. If anything, she had a tendency to understate any issues she might be having, and if she was asking him for help he had no doubt it was very, very serious.

 _Where are you?_ He typed back, climbing out of bed and finding the shirt and jeans he'd worn that day and pulling them on.

 _Gas station at the corner of Main and Cypress. It has a yellow sign in front of it. Hurry._

He wasn't sure what to do with Bae. Whatever was going on, he had no desire to drag his son into it. At the same time, he didn't want to leave him alone.

"Bae," he whispered as he shook his son awake. "Bae, I have to go get Belle from work. She missed her bus."

Bae nodded sleepily.

"I'll be back very soon," Bobby continued. "If you need anything, hit zero on the phone and it'll call the lady downstairs, okay?"

"Okay, Papa," Bae said, already going back to sleep as he spoke. Bobby smiled and tucked his son back in before leaving the room.

The woman who stayed at the front desk all night was understanding when he explained a friend had an emergency and she promised she'd be there if Bae needed her. It wasn't until he was in his car that his adrenaline caught up with what he was doing. Belle wasn't a coward. If she called for help, it meant that she was in danger.

He found the gas station easily enough, and before he'd even turned off the car she was running out of the store. He unlocked the doors so she could get in quickly and she relocked them as soon as she was in the seat.

"Drive," she said. "Don't go back to the shelter yet."

He pulled out and headed the opposite way from home as she watched the rear window attentively. He heard her swear under her breath, and he knew it was bad.

"Turn left at Elm," she said. "Then take a right at Davis."

He followed wordlessly as she gave him directions to something, and when he saw the lights of the police station he realized her destination and pulled into the parking lot by the front door. She was still watching the street alertly, and he was watching her because he didn't know what they were looking for. When he saw her exhale and sag into her seat in relief he finally allowed himself to relax.

"What just happened?" he asked, noting for the first time the fresh bruises on her wrists and her bloody lip.

"He found me," she said.

"I figured that much. Do you want me to go into the station with you?"

"No," she said. "I just want to go home."

"You're not pressing charges?"

"I can still do it tomorrow," she said pleadingly. "I just want to go home now."

"Belle, he attacked you at work. Do you even have a restraining order?"

"Please," she said and he could hear the tears in her voice making his determination that he was right falter. "Just take me home."

He was trying not to be upset, but he was so scared for her and for himself, to be honest. Still, he pulled out of the parking lot and started to drive back towards the shelter.

"Why is he so determined to get back at you?" Bobby asked when they were about halfway there. "You've been gone for weeks."

She was properly crying now, and it was killing him to hear. He'd never been able to handle other people crying, he always had to fix it.

"Turn here," she said.

"Belle…"

"I'll tell you, I swear. Just turn here. I want to be alone when I do and there's no place to do that at the shelter."

He grimaced, but he did as she asked, following her instructions until he was parked outside the college football stadium surrounded by a small copse of trees. There were two other cars parked nearby, but the fogged up windows gave him the idea that nobody in either of those cars were the least bit interested in the outside world.

Belle hadn't been here since she left school, but she was glad to see it was still there. They were close enough to civilization that she felt safe, but far enough away that she knew they would be ignored. Bobby was fidgeting with the wheel and looking around, and she just needed a moment to gather her thoughts. It had been a long night, and she just needed a moment.

"I don't know how he found me," she said for lack of a better place to begin. "I had thought he wouldn't dare go to a dive like that, but I guess someone saw me and told him and he was waiting for me when I got off work."

She shut her eyes to try to lock out the memory of him materializing out of the dark.

 _I want my baby, Belle_. It had been such a simple phrase, but it had made her blood run cold.

"Is he trying to get you back?" Bobby asked her. Bless him, he was trying to understand. She didn't want him, of all people, to hate her.

"I never told you why I left last time," Belle said. "Not the whole story, anyway. When he beat me that time, I'd… It was supposed to be a celebration dinner."

She couldn't get the rest of it out, but he was looking at her torso and she realized that she'd cupped it instinctively. She forced her hand to relax even as his eyes shot to her face.

"You're…" he didn't seem any more able to get the word _pregnant_ out than she was, but she shook her head.

"No," she said. "Not anymore. He'd really wanted to have a baby, you know? And I thought it would make things better between us. It was all he could talk about was having a baby and how much he wanted to see me pregnant and everything. It was supposed to make things better. That's the only reason I stopped taking my pill. But before I could tell him, he accused me of cheating on him and he had me pinned down and I thought for sure he was going to rape me but he didn't and by the time he had calmed down, I knew I couldn't tell him because he'd just think it wasn't his."

She was crying in earnest now. She'd never really talked about it, and even hearing the words coming out of her own mouth made it all feel so much more real.

"Did you lose it?" Bobby asked her quietly. She could tell him she had, and he would pity her and she would be the victim. She didn't want to lie, though. She'd only had one possible choice, and she had made it.

"Gaston has a lot of money," she said quietly. "I don't know if I ever told you that, but his dad is a bigwig at a bank and he's this hotshot broker. If I'd had his baby, there's no way he was going to let me keep it. They have lawyers and a family name and I _couldn't_ let him have my baby. I know what he did to me, I couldn't risk him taking his anger out on my baby. He wasn't going to stop." She was begging him not to hate her now, begging for him to understand. "When I left, I took his checkbook and I went to a clinic and they did some blood work and gave me some pills and I went back to the shelter and I took them. It was the only place I could go to be safe while the abortion was happening. What else could I do?"

She couldn't bear to look at him right away. She was terrified of what people would think of her if she told them, but she'd been afraid of worse things than judgment before. When she finally turned back to him he was holding his hand towards her, but seemed at a total loss for where to put it. She put her left hand on the space between them and he covered it with his softly. It felt so nice to just be touched again without being afraid of what came next.

"So tonight?" he prompted.

"He must have figured it out when he saw the bank statement," she continued. "I wouldn't have used his money, but I didn't have any of my own. If I had, I could have gone someplace he wouldn't have found me and started over. But he found out somehow and he came looking for the baby. He didn't believe me when I said I'd lost it. I'm gonna have to quit my job."

Somehow, it was the last part that pushed her over the edge and she started sobbing uncontrollably. It wasn't a great job, but it was _hers_ and it was the best she could do.

She wasn't sure what started it, but somehow she ended up crying on Bobby's shoulder while he petted her hair quietly. It had been years since someone had touched her like they loved her. She'd almost forgotten what it felt like to be treated gently when there was no expectation of sex in response, and that just made her cry harder.

"I'm sorry," she said once she was pulled together enough to speak. "I pulled you out of bed in the middle of the night for this. You need to sleep."

She tried to move away from him, but he cupped her cheek and she couldn't bring herself to go.

"I wasn't asleep," he said weakly and she wondered all at once how long it had been since he'd been touched by someone who wasn't his son.

She couldn't think of a way to ask or offer this, so she didn't. She moved slowly, unbuckling her seatbelt and scooting across the bench seat so that their sides were touching. He at a nervous look on his face, but he didn't seem scared as she reached her hand up and ran her fingers through his hair slowly and Bobby turned his face into her hand in what looked like relief. He was just as starved for contact as she was.

Belle didn't dare to kiss him, though she suddenly wanted to, so instead she pulled herself into his lap and rested her head against his. He pulled her closer and closed his eyes as they held each other. They were so close that they were breathing the same air, but it felt safe rather than claustrophobic. His hands were resting chastely on her back and she just wished to be closer to him. It hurt, but in a good way, like eating too much after a period of starvation. He was warm and safe, and it had been so long since she'd felt either of those things.

She stroked his hair and neck as they held each other, and he seemed just as affected as she was. His lips were quivering and she just wanted to hold him until it didn't feel so strange anymore.

They must have sat for ages, but all at once the moment was over. They didn't speak as he drove her back to the shelter, though she thanked him as she got out of the car. He walked her to the front of her building, and she wanted to kiss him again but she knew they couldn't be caught being affectionate on the property. She didn't want anyone to think it was more than it was, and she really wasn't even sure what it had all meant. She knew she'd liked it, though. And she truly hoped they would have another opportunity to do that.


	8. Chapter 8

Belle liked to try to do Bae's homework with him. It meant he would be able to spend more time with his father in the evenings, and that she wouldn't need to entertain him too much. She'd never spent a lot of time around kids his age, and having a set activity made it all go a lot easier.

Unfortunately, sometimes Bae had other plans.

"Hey Belle?" he asked as she looked over his sheet of math problems. "Did your boyfriend hurt you like my momma hurt my papa?"

Well, that was a conversation she didn't really want to be having with a six year old. But at the same time, she didn't know that he really knew any adults besides the ones from school who weren't fresh out of abusive situations.

"Yeah," she said, hoping he wouldn't press the issue. "You wrote your 3 backwards on problem number six," she said, handing him the paper back so he could fix it.

"Oh," he replied, taking his pencil and carefully erasing and rewriting the number correctly. "Am I done?"

"You are," she said. They'd finished the sentences he had to write already, and she left the reading for his father to handle. "You wanna go play?"

"Yeah," he said idly, and she could tell something was still bothering him. "My friend Mitchell's dad used to hit him before his momma took them here."

"That happens sometimes," Belle replied. "Not all papas are like yours."

"Did your papa hit you?"

"No sweetie," she said. "Mine didn't hit me."

"Oh, that's good."

Bae seemed completely absorbed by processing this information and she hoped he'd change the subject soon.

"So just your boyfriend hit you?" he asked and she nodded. "Why?"

"I don't know," she said, though she wished she did. If she could have done anything to stop it, she would have in an instant. "I think sometimes people are just bad to each other and there's nothing you can do to fix it."

"But that doesn't mean you did anything wrong," Bae said firmly. "Right? Mitchell's momma said that he didn't do anything wrong."

"Right," she said. "Nobody should ever be allowed to hurt anybody. Now, go play. Your papa will be home soon and he'll want to visit with you before bed."

Bae nodded and ran off, and she tried to decide how she was ever going to tell his father about this. Bobby tended to shelter his son as much as possible, no

t that she blamed him of course, but it made it a little awkward to tell him if Bae was asking difficult questions. That was probably why Bae didn't usually ask his father those things, though. She watched Bae as he climbed the jungle gym with his friend, and wondered what it must be like to be so little and stuck in this sort of situation. At least she'd made her own choices, these kids never had a chance.

How many of them were going to be in her shoes someday? That was the scary part, really. After what they'd seen, would they be more vulnerable to becoming involved with bad people?

She was already feeling a little agitated by the idea when Bobby approached. He had been a lot happier to see her the last few days since their cuddle in the car, and she didn't dare delude herself into thinking his feelings weren't starting to get more than friendly. It wasn't entirely unexpected, and it wasn't entirely unwelcomed, but it most definitely wasn't a good time for either of them. Still, it had been nice to be held, and she kind of wanted to do it again. It felt a lot like high school, actually. Trying to find ways to sneak away to hold hands where nobody would notice. It was a bit of a thrill, but there was also that overwhelming sense of self preservation that told her to run away. She'd be no good for him as she was, and she couldn't see how he'd be any good for her in the long term, either.

He smiled at her as he sat down, and she smiled back, and it was a pleasant kind of quiet for a little while.

"How was your day?" he asked at last.

"It was okay," she said. "I picked up my last check from the bar. I'll go talk to the career lady tomorrow."

"I'm sorry."

"You didn't do anything. It was my own fault for not being careful enough."

"What are you going to do now?"

"I don't know," she said. "There aren't a lot of things I'm qualified for. There has to be something though, right?"

"Right," he said, nodding in agreement even though she was pretty sure he was just indulging her. "Let me know if you need anything, okay? Anything at all."

She smiled, because she knew he was trying to help she just couldn't think of anything he could do short of taking her in and she didn't want that. She was terrified he'd ask her to come with him when he left, because it would be so easy to become complacent again and let another man take care of her. She couldn't be that sort of burden on him or his son. She didn't _want_ to be a burden to anyone anymore, and she definitely didn't want to get into another bad situation.

"How was work?" she asked him, more to change the subject than anything else.

"It was fine. Same as always, really."

"Good. That's good."

His hand was next to hers on the bench, close enough that she could feel his warmth. Part of her wanted to touch him, and take whatever comfort she could get, but something held her back.

"Bae was asking about...things," she said at last, pulling her hands into her lap."

"Things?"

"His friends' fathers, why people hurt each other, stuff like that."

"Oh," he said as he pulled his hands back as well. "I suppose it's time to have a talk about that."

"Probably."

They sat in silence for a bit, neither one really knowing what to say until at last Bae came over and took his father away and Belle felt like she could breathe again at least for a little while.

So Belle was going to be a temp. Once she'd explained her situation to the job lady she'd set her up with an agency. It wasn't ideal, she wouldn't know where she'd be going from week to week or if she'd even have work each week, but it would let her avoid the public and hopefully keep her safe. She was sure that Gaston was stalking her now and if he was still desperate to see her he could find the shelter on the GPS from her phone account. She'd gotten a prepaid one as soon as she could, but the last time she'd been at the shelter it had been with her. It was really just a matter of time until he showed up.

She'd had to quit her babysitting job, but with the car Bobby didn't honestly need her to watch Bae. He could get him from the afterschool program fairly easily, and besides if Bobby planned to move as soon as he chose a place then Bae was going to need to get used to the program.

"You should let me drive you," Bobby said after she told him. "It would be safer than the bus."

"I can't put you out like that. I don't even know where I'll be working."

"Bae already leaves before I do, I'd hardly notice the difference."

"You won't be here forever," she reminded him. "I can't get used to it."

"At least let me help you get on your feet," he said pleadingly. "I'd feel a lot better knowing you were safe."

She hated to take advantage of his kindness, but she knew he was right. She'd be safer if she wasn't waiting for a bus twice a day.

"Alright," she said at last. "But I'm going to pay you for gas."

"Deal," he said with a smile that soon faded and he looked down shyly. "Bae is um, staying overnight with one of his friends tonight."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, I was sort of wondering if you'd like to – not that there's any pressure it was just an idea – but do you want to go for a drive?"

It took her a moment to catch his meaning, but the little blush on his cheeks and the way he wouldn't meet her eye made it clear. She should say no, of course. He'd be moving soon and she most certainly didn't need to be involved with him any more than she already was. And he didn't need to be involved with her. He was still married in spite of his divorce attorney's best efforts, and her ex-boyfriend was stalking her. They were both of them terrible disasters, and she desperately wanted his arms around her again.

"Sure," she said, trying not to let her heart skip a beat at the way he smiled when she said yes to him. It occurred to her as they walked to his car that she was using him, but he was using her the same way so was it really that bad?

He wanted her, maybe it was more about a need for comfort and affection than anything else, but she needed those things just as badly and it was so nice to be asked instead of demanded.

Bobby's hands were shaking as he turned into the lover's lane she'd directed him to the last time, and he couldn't even look at her right away.

"Do you want to get in the backseat?" she asked, and that drew his eyes immediately with a shocked look. "I just mean that there's more room," she continued. "Might be more comfortable."

He nodded wordlessly and by the time they were in the backseat he was shaking even harder, which somehow gave her more confidence. She opened her arms and beckoned him towards her, letting him settle his head against her breasts as they lay awkwardly across the backseat. She was petting his hair softly and he gasped and shuddered at her touch.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

"Why?"

"I shouldn't impose like this."

"You're not," she said. "I like it, too."

He didn't look at her, but she felt his hands curl in her shirt behind her back and she kissed the top of his hair on a lark. Nothing that happened in the car felt real. It was like a separate world away from the hell they usually lived in – a tiny little piece of heaven, and the most selfish thing she had.

"I've been thinking," she began. "If we're going to do this more often we should probably set some ground rules?"

"Like what?"

"Whatever happens here isn't real. It stays in the car."

He nodded against her chest in response, and so she continued.

"It just needs to be between us, you know? You've got your divorce and I've got my...situation. It doesn't need to be another complication."

"Is it a complication?" he asked, looking at her for the first time.

"Not at all," she replied quickly. "I like it, really. I just can't let it be anything else right now, you know? And neither can you."

"You're right," he said. "Absolutely right."

"So, you're okay with that?"

"With what?"

"Just keeping this as uncomplicated as possible?"

"Of course," he replied. "You're right. Things are already too complicated. It's just nice to have something _nice_ for once."

"It is nice," she agreed. She should tell him how much she enjoyed it, but words felt intrusive. His breath was the only sound she could hear, and she was sure she could spend all night with him wanting to be with her.

She slid down the seat a little bit and wriggled her left leg out from underneath him so he was nestled between her legs with his head still on her chest. She slid her hand from his hair to brush her fingers against his neck and he shivered again. He grabbed her hand gently and brought it to his lips so he could kiss her palm before releasing her again.

Belle still wasn't sure what she was doing, or if it was the right choice, but it was _her_ choice and she'd had far too few of those lately. Maybe they were spiralling towards an inevitable heartbreak – in fact, they probably were. But for right now it was good enough. She tilted his head up and leaned forward to press a quick kiss on his lips and when she pulled away he was blushing again. She settled back against the door and tried to smile to reassure him that she'd meant to do it, but he lurched forward quickly and kissed her one more time before settling back against her chest without meeting her eyes.

It was strangely unsettling to have kissed him and been kissed, but she'd liked it. Her heart was pounding and her thoughts were swimming, but God help her she'd liked it. She was in so much damn trouble.


	9. Chapter 9

Bobby hated doctors, but unfortunately they were a bit of a necessary evil sometimes, and when he finished seeing this one he and Bae would have health insurance. So he'd taken a half day at work and gone to the (female) doctor that the insurance company had directed him to. Perhaps it wouldn't have been as awkward with a man, but being nearly naked in front of a strange woman and discussing everything that was wrong with him was a significant source of stress at the best of times.

They'd already been through everything from his injury (still healing) to his blood pressure (slightly elevated, but nothing to worry about), and he was already exhausted.

"Are you sexually active?" Dr. Hua asked.

"Not at the moment, no."

"How many partners have you had in the last year?"

"Just my wife," he said. "Well, ex-wife. Estranged. We're in the process of divorcing."

The doctor nodded and made a mark on her paper for him.

"And to your knowledge was your wife monogamous?" she asked. He was a little grateful that she at least sounded apologetic for asking, but it didn't make the answer any easier.

"No," he said, shaking his head.

"No she wasn't monogamous or no you don't know?"

"She wasn't…" he tilted his head back and took a deep breath before continuing. "She had at least one boyfriend."

"Okay," she replied, making another little note. "When was the last time you had a blood test?"

His mind was reeling at the implication. It hadn't even occurred to him to consider that. There had been so many other things to deal with, and they'd been intimate so rarely towards the end…

All he could do was shake his head, and she closed her file and stood up.

"I'm going to have the lab do a full STD panel for you when we do your cholesterol test," she said. "I'll have results for you by the end of the week."

He nodded as she shook his hand and excused herself. He changed quickly into his clothes and he was still fastening his belt with trembling fingers when the nurse knocked on the door softly and entered. She took him to have his blood drawn and then directed him to the receptionist where he paid his bill and left in a daze. He couldn't remember anything of the trip to retrieve Belle from her placement that week. She was still inside the building when he arrived, but she joined him in the car within a few minutes, sliding into the seat next to him and smiling brightly as she did it.

"Hey," she said as she settled in. "How was your appointment?"

"Good," he said somehow even with his throat feeling like it was going to close up. "Everything is fine."

"See? I told you that you were worried about nothing."

She patted his shoulder gently, somehow thankfully missing that he was very much _not_ okay. There was no way he could have told her that the doctor was testing him for something sexually transmitted. He hadn't done anything wrong, and yet here he was. How could he even tell her that? How could he tell her any of it?

She was in a cheerful mood, apparently her job was going well and it had mostly been answering phones, so she'd had a lot of time to read. He wished he could be excited for her, or anything at all besides what the doctor had said. He was supposed to find out the results within the week, so he just had to go on through then and he'd be okay. It was probably nothing to worry about, but he would just feel so much better when he knew that he and his son were okay.

They collected Bae from school, and thankfully his little boy didn't notice anything amiss, either. It was so close to happiness as he drove them all back to the shelter. It was almost impossible to get Bae to put his bookbag in their room before he joined his friends on the playground, and a big part of Bobby missed the days when Belle would be on the playground with Bae when Bobby got home from work. It was harder to catch her outside now, and she retreated to her room almost as soon as the three of them parked.

Bobby had chosen an apartment. It was income controlled, so the rent was fairly low for the area and it seemed nice enough for the area. Most of the people in it were elderly or single parents, and that suited him just fine. The only problem was that there weren't any openings immediately available. They'd have something by the end of the month, but they'd be in the shelter at least a few more weeks. Truthfully, he didn't mind the shelter though. Bae liked the other children and Bobby liked having Belle around. Plus he knew that Bae would be safe in any public place at the shelter. The parents and staff all watched the children like hawks and the security guard didn't allow non-residents in without an escort.

There was also the little matter of Bobby's arrangement with Belle. He knew it was a bad idea all around, and his feelings were getting more complicated by the day. He didn't know what they were to each other, or what her feelings were, but he knew his weren't just friendly anymore. They'd crossed that bridge long ago and he wasn't sure if he wanted to run away or just settle in and see where it went. She was lovely and kind and comforting, and he needed that somehow. The psychiatrist would probably have something to say about this, but Bobby wasn't seeing the psychiatrist so what did it matter if it was healthy in the long term or if he was just getting by? He was close to happy sometimes, and that was good enough for right now.

Bae was playing happily with the other children when Bobby heard a noise by the entrance. He wasn't sure what compelled him to follow the commotion, but Bae was happily on a make believe pirate ship with a couple of his friends and wouldn't miss his father for a few minutes.

As Bobby approached the front gate he heard some raised voices and what they were saying was making his skin prickle.

"You don't understand," a man said. "You just have to let me talk to her. She's carrying my child. Just call her, she'll want to see me!"

"You can't be here, sir," the woman who ran the gate said. "If you don't leave, I'm going to call the police."

The strange man looked like he was debating banging on the closed gate, but seemed to think the better of it. Instead, he pulled back and gathered his composure. He was very tall. That was the first thing Bobby noticed about him. He was also fairly attractive and wore what looked like a fairly expensive suit, though he definitely had a slightly dangerous air to him.

"Please," the stranger said. "I just need five minutes with her. She's having my baby, I just want to help her. Her name is Belle French. Just...at least tell her I was here?"

So this was Gaston, then. Bobby felt himself drawing back in spite of himself. He wanted to confront this stranger who was a threat to his friend, but he was still a little gunshy himself and somehow he was sure that trying to integrate himself into this conflict would only make thing worse.

The security guard had retreated to her booth and was dialing the police, and Gaston started backing away. His eyes met Bobby's for a split second and then something strange happened – the other man _smiled_ , though not in a kind way. He smiled like he knew something Bobby didn't and it chilled him to the bone to see. Bobby turned and hurried back to Bae and tried to decide what he could possibly say to Belle about any of this.

Belle appeared on the playground about an hour later, looking shaken and she made a beeline for him.

"Can Bae sleepover with a friend tonight?" she asked and the way her voice was breaking he couldn't do anything but nod.

Bae's friend Mitchell was on the playground, and Bobby quickly located his mother and went to ask if she'd watch Bae for the evening. As far as he could tell, she was struggling to create some normalcy for her son and sleepovers fell into that realm for her. He made a mental note to offer to take the boys out for pizza or something later that week when she agreed to watch Bae for him.

"His friend's mom is going to watch him," he told Belle when he returned to her. "Are you okay?"

"Meet me at your car in fifteen minutes?" she said, wiping her cheeks quickly and walking off before he could even agree. This had shaken her, and he had a hard time waiting the full fifteen minutes to join her.

She had her arms crossed over her chest as she leaned against the passenger side door, and once he had it unlocked she just let herself into the car silently and neither one spoke until he'd parked at their usual spot and realized she was crying.

"Are you alright?" he asked and in response she buried her face in his shoulder and sobbed.

"He found me," she said through her tears. "The police came and everything and they offered to serve him with an emergency order of protection but I don't know what to do because if he found me here where else can I go?"

"It's going to be okay," he said, although he knew it wasn't. They all knew that an order of protection was only as good as whether or not anyone knew where you were and whether they were willing to go to jail. If Gaston thought she was still pregnant, he may just be willing to try to force the issue to get to the baby.

Belle, thankfully, didn't try to argue. She just sat there and cried on him until his shirt was soaked through in that spot. It was weirdly comforting to him to have a woman actually need him for something because it had been so long since one had. He shifted so he could hold her a little closer, but when he shifted she stretched herself upward and kissed him hard on the lips. It wasn't like when she'd kissed him before and it was practically chaste. This was a real kiss. She sucked his lower lip into her mouth and before he could even pull himself together enough to reciprocate she was climbing into his lap and slipping her tongue into his mouth.

As soon as his shock wore off, he had his arms around her waist and was holding her against him. He needed this desperately, whether it was a good idea or not. She was frantic, kissing his lips and cheek and neck and tangling her fingers in his hair. He almost felt like she was trying to crawl into his skin, but he didn't want to be in his own body anymore, either.

She was so soft. He couldn't get over how soft and warm she was, and he ran his hands down to her hips savoring the way it felt just to touch her. Belle nipped at his lower lip and then pulled away to press her forehead against is, and he felt her sighing before she turned her head away and kissed his temple softly. He held her shirt in his fists because he couldn't stand the idea of letting her go, but the moment was ending and he knew it. She had her cheek pressed to the top of his head and the rest of her body curled around him.

"I feel like I should apologize," she whispered.

"Please don't. I don't think I could take it."

"It was an awful idea."

"I know," he said. "But don't apologize."

She nodded and started combing through his hair with her fingers again. He'd give her anything to just keep doing what she was doing, to keep making him feel like he was a choice.

He had feelings for her. That was beyond denying now, and he wouldn't even if he could have. There was nothing right about this. Their situations were both so complicated. His wife had just been served divorce papers, and she was being stalked by her ex-boyfriend. There were no happy endings to be found here, but he couldn't stop wanting to be there with her.

A few days later and Bobby still couldn't get what had happened with Belle out of his head, although they hadn't been back to the lover's lane since. He didn't know how to ask, and even if he had it probably wasn't appropriate. She was still nervous over Gaston's reappearance, and his lawyer was still arguing with Milah's. He'd also been putting off calling his doctor back for his test results. He was sure it was nothing, but he'd been busy with work and Bae and if it was nothing then why should it matter if he'd done it or not?

Of course, ignoring the doctor didn't mean the doctor was ignoring him. He cell phone rang while he was at work, and it was the doctor's receptionist for him.

"Are you available for Dr. Hua?" the girl asked, and when he said yes he was instantly put on hold. He found a private place to take the call while he waited. He knew this wasn't a good sign.

"Mr. Rumsley?"

He was shaking as soon as he heard the doctor's voice, but he was remarkably calm now that it was happening.

"I'm calling to talk about your test results," she continued. "Do you have a moment?"

"Yeah," he replied. "What's wrong with them?"

"Well, they did come back positive for syphilis."

His blood went completely cold. She was talking about everything that he _didn't_ have now, but he was completely lost. He had an STD. Milah had given him an STD. His _wife_ had given him an STD. He thought he might be sick. He'd been loyal to her, and he'd done whatever he could to make their marriage work and she'd brought an STD into their marriage. He'd known for a long time that she hadn't been faithful to him, but having this proof of it slap him in the face was completely different. He felt sick, and disgusting and so, so angry with her for what she'd done to him.

"So what are my options?" he managed to ask.

"Your prognosis is very good," she replied. "Something like ninety percent of people are cured with a single round of penicillin so that's what we'll start you with. I'll have the receptionist send over a prescription, and we'll test you again in six months to make sure it's cleared up but otherwise you should be fine. Just make sure you're using protection for any sexual encounters until then."

He was still reeling, but he managed to get off the phone and return to work. He had to get through the day. He had to maintain. And he had to figure out what he was going to do.


	10. Chapter 10

Having an order of protection made Belle feel a little bit better, but not a whole lot. For one thing, she was now positive that Gaston knew where she was living. It probably shouldn't have been such an uncomfortable shock, because there were only a few domestic violence shelters in the state and while they tried to keep the address hard to find they still had to make it accessible for people who needed to move in. She didn't want to go outside anymore. She had to finish out her temp placement, but when it was over she didn't call for another one. It was like she could feel Gaston's eyes on her every time she was outside the gate. This is how people got murdered.

Maybe she should leave the state. Her dad might let her move back in, but she didn't want him to know how bad her situation had gotten. She wished more than anything that there was a way to make Gaston believe that there wasn't a baby anymore or (better yet) that there never had been one. There were only so many reasons to spend fifteen hundred dollars at the women's clinic, though, and it was probably better that he didn't know she'd terminated the pregnancy. There was no telling what he'd do if he found out, and she wasn't sure she could hide it from him.

What was she going to do with her life, anyway? She'd had dreams when she'd been in school, but it was hard to remember them when she wasn't sure how she was going to get back on her feet. The idea of starting over just made her feel old and tired. It wasn't that she was even really that old, it's just that she'd had a life she thought she wanted and now it was all spiralling out of control. The only bit of control she had left to her was in her relationship (such as it was) with Bobby, and even that had cooled since they'd made out in the backseat of his car.

It wasn't worth the risk to go out driving now that Gaston knew where she was and she didn't want to draw his attention to anyone else in the shelter. That did still leave her free to do whatever she liked within the safety of the fence, though, and sometimes when things were going very poorly she would get the occasional pleasant surprise.

"Hi Belle!" Bae said cheerfully as he threw himself to the ground next to where she'd been sitting under a tree and reading one of her remaining library books.

It might be worth the risk to take a bus to the library to restock soon. If she did it late morning on a random weekday then Gaston was almost guaranteed to be at work. It was mostly the morning and evening when he was able to stalk her without risking his job.

"Hi," she said to the boy as he pulled himself together. "Where's your dad?"

"He's coming," Bae replied. "We got food!"

She was about to ask him where they'd gone when Bobby came into view. He had a bag in his free hand holding what looked like fried chicken and she couldn't help smile at having been included. Food from outside the shelter was a rare treat, and it had been a sweet gesture on their part. Bobby had been acting a little strangely since they'd made out – or maybe since Gaston showed up – but he still seemed to like being near her, though without much touching anymore.

Despite the rules against fraternizing, the shelter staff seemed largely unconcerned with their closeness. She wasn't sure if they were really being as subtle as they had tried or if it was more of a rule that was designed to prevent interpersonal drama in such close quarters but either way it was a small relief to not feel like she was under surveillance when they were together.

It took Bobby a bit longer than Bae to sit on the grass, but he joined them quietly and set the food out. Bae kept up a constant stream of chatter, which distracted from how silent the grownups were. She wished she could apologize for pulling Bobby into her mess, but she wasn't sure how to go about it. She wasn't even sure what she'd done to put him off, either.

Bae finished before both adults and barely took the time to excuse himself before he saw one of the boys he liked to play with and ran off to the jungle gym.

"This is very good," Belle said at last. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it," Bobby replied to her ankles. "It was no trouble at all and we were celebrating."

"Oh yeah?" she asked. "What are we celebrating?"

"We're going to be getting a little money with the divorce settlement," he said. "My wife signed the papers. Now we're just waiting on the judge to approve it and it'll all be over."

"That is good news," she said. "How does it feel to have it all over?"

"It's not _all_ over – but it is nice to have the worst of it behind me."

"How did you get her to agree to pay you for the house? I thought that she was going to keep it and you'd keep Bae."

"There was some new information," he said slowly. "Some things came to light that we were able to use against her."

"A witness?" she asked. He was acting strangely and she couldn't figure out what could be so awful that he was so uncomfortable talking about it with her. She'd told him so much worse about her situation.

"Something like that," he replied. "But the important thing is that it's over."

"Well, I'm happy for you," she said, daring to reach out and touch his hand where it rested in the grass. He flinched, and she quickly moved her hand away. After a few heartbeats she felt his fingers brush against hers, though he still wasn't looking at her.

Bobby had no idea what to do. He really, really liked Belle, but there was no way the timing of meeting her could have been any worse. At least his divorce would be finalized by the end of the year, and he was going to be in a position to put a down payment on a house at that point if he could find a better job, but he had months left before his blood test to see if the antibiotics had worked – hell, he still had a few days of antibiotics left to take.

"Do you think Bae will miss being here?" Belle asked.

"Once we move?"

"Yeah. I mean, do you think he'll miss the other kids being around?"

"Probably, but there will be other kids in our neighborhood. He'll be okay."

"What about you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Are you going to miss it here?"

Was he? He'd definitely miss her. And he'd miss Bae having children to play with, though maybe not sharing a living space with a group of teenage boys. He wouldn't miss the food, or everyone knowing his life story but he would miss the strange intimacy of this place, the way that no one noticed when he had trouble breathing sometimes when it got too loud. He'd miss how he knew that Bae would always be protected because even if he wasn't nearby there would be at least three other adults nearby with a vested interest in the children being okay. He would miss the glow of an unsmoked cigarette underneath his window beckoning him to the playground.

"I'll miss some things," he said at last. "But we have to leave sooner or later, and the sooner we leave the easier it will be to adjust."

"I think I'd miss it," she said. "I mean, not the shelter so much. Just the community, you know? I know I have to leave, but they sort of take care of you here without expecting anything in return, and it's been so long since anyone did that for me."

They sat in silence for a bit with just the tips of their fingers touching. He knew what she meant – both of them had spent their lives taking care of other people, and here there was no one to take care of except for his son. The silence went on until it became awkward before Belle finally spoke.

"Can I ask you a question?" she asked, waiting for him to nod before she continued. "How did you decide to marry your ex?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"I've been reading some books from the library about situations like ours," she said. "I'm trying to figure out how I got here."

"Yeah? How's that going?"

"Not great. Although apparently my dad was a little overbearing and I never noticed."

"Is that good?"

"I mean, I guess it's part of an answer. I just wish I had a better one. I wish I had something to point to and say that's why I stayed, or why he wanted me. Just... _something_ , you know?"

"You want to know what it is that made you an easy mark," he said.

"Exactly," Belle said as she nodded enthusiastically. "What was it he saw in me that made him know he could do this to me?"

"I don't know," he said. "I wish I did, though."

She nodded again and went back to staring out into the courtyard where the children were playing. He didn't think his nerves could take any more of this conversation. Unlike her, he knew _exactly_ what was wrong with him, and he didn't know how to fix it.

Somehow, it hadn't ever occurred to him that Milah would turn out like his father. He'd been worried that _he_ might, of course. That thought had always been in the back of his mind, that he would have the rage and resentment in him that had poisoned his father. But Malcolm had hated Milah. They'd met once and gotten into a fight that ended with Malcolm insisting that Bobby break up with her and Milah telling Malcolm to go fuck himself. That had been the day that Bobby knew he would marry her. If she could tell his father off so easily, then it stood to reason that she would do the same to him if needs be. He'd thought that he'd found someone who he could trust to keep him in check if he turned out to be an awful father, but instead he'd found a woman who would turn out to be just like him.

"I'm thinking of moving back in with my dad," she said softly. "Or at least see if I can find a place in a shelter near him."

"I thought you hadn't spoken recently?"

"We haven't, but I can't stay here. Gaston's going to keep coming for me as long as he can find me."

His heart sank. She was right, of course. It was dangerous for her here and Gaston had shown he was dedicated to making her life miserable as long as he could. Leaving town would probably be her best chance at safety short of shooting him. Still, though, Bobby was going to miss her so much if she left. Nobody else ever wanted to talk to him.

"That might be a good idea," he said once he managed to get his thoughts in order. "Where does he live?"

"The last time we talked he was living a few states away."

"But you don't know for sure?"

"No, I'd call him before I went through with it. Or maybe I'll just go to a shelter in, like, Idaho or something. Somewhere completely new where nobody knows me and start over."

Like he'd done. It was the same impulse that had brought him here to where she was so that he could know her for just this brief time before she had to be out of his life again.


	11. Chapter 11

Gaston's arrival had unfortunately done nothing to slow Bobby and Bae leaving for their new apartment and leaving Belle alone. Well, she wasn't really _alone_ , because there were still the other residents and the staff and everyone, but they had been her only friends and she missed them. She could still text or call, but it was different having someone there with you every evening than needing to call them constantly.

Belle was still debating moving in with her dad when they had moved out. It was lonely to still be trapped at the shelter afterward, Bobby had been the only one she ever really talked to there and now she was sort of bereft. She'd talked to the shelter coordinators, and they told her they would call around and let her know when there was a place available nearer to her father but that she wasn't exactly going to be a high priority since she was safe. So she was stuck doing nothing and never leaving the compound except to go to the library on some random afternoon each week. She was going stir crazy, and that's always when she was most prone to making rash decisions.

 _Can we go out?_ she texted Bobby in the middle of the week when she was absolutely sure she was going to scream if things didn't change. _It doesn't matter when._

He didn't answer right away, but she didn't have much to do besides wait for a reply.

 _Will it be safe?_ he sent back.

 _I'll figure something out, but I've gotta get away from this place for a little while._

 _Then okay,_ he sent back.

She was pretty free to plan her escape for the rest of the week, and she was also completely sure she knew what she wanted to do. There was just the simple matter of how to talk him into it.

Gaston wouldn't know to look for Bobby or his car (as far as Belle could tell, anyway) so she'd had him pick her up behind the shelter and she sat in the back and ducked down until they were far enough away that it wasn't a huge risk to join him in the front. From there, it was almost a real date. They went to a really small, mid-range restaurant (the kind she was sure Gaston wouldn't ever go to) and then the drive-in again. It was nice, and she had a nice time, but she'd already decided she wanted more.

She was watching Bobby watch the movie, and he turned to look at her and smiled. She was safe here and she liked that, and she _wanted_ to like it. Dangerous men had gotten her into this situation, and she didn't want to be like this again once it was over.

"I think we should have sex," she said and he went completely pale. She hadn't meant to blurt it out like that, but it needed to be on the the table.

"I – what?"

"We should have sex," she said again, trying to sound as confident as she could. "I mean it."

He swallowed hard and looked back to the screen and then back to her face.

"I don't think that's a good idea," he said at last.

"Why not?"

"It's just – it's not a good idea."

"I think it is," she said, sliding closer to him slowly. "When was the last time someone was gentle with you?"

He was staring straight ahead now and she could see his heartbeat in his throat. He looked like a spooked horse, and she was going to need to be slow if she wanted this. And she did want it. She wanted to do it just this once with a man who would be kind.

"Because I don't remember the last time anyone was with me," she continued when he didn't reply. "I'm not asking you for anything more than that. I just don't want the last time I was with someone to be with him. I want to know what it's supposed to feel like."

She took his hand in hers and traced his fingers gently. At last, he tightened his hand around hers and looked back into her eyes.

"I can't, Belle," he said in a rush. "I _want_ to, I do – but I can't."

"I won't make you," she said, leaning her head onto his shoulder and pulling his hand into her lap so she could keep tracing the lines of his palm and his fingers. "Can I ask why not?"

She felt him shake his head and she just relaxed into him. If he was going to tell her, he'd tell her and if he wasn't then she was still here with him. She just wanted to feel this for just a little bit longer either way, and if he wasn't comfortable with sex then this would have to do. She didn't know if he loved her or not, and she certainly didn't know if she loved him, but she has come to realize that he made her feel loved, and that was worth clinging to if anything was. She just didn't want to walk away from him and leave the state without this one last piece of normalcy.

"My wife gave me something," he said suddenly and it took her a second to figure out what he was talking about.

"You mean...an STD?"

She didn't look at him, she didn't want him to feel like she was judging him but she also didn't want him to think she hated him. So she squeezed his hand and waited for him to talk again.

"Yeah," he said at last. "I just found out a couple weeks ago. I finished my medication, but I don't know if it's still...the doctor can't tell me if it was effective for another few months."

"Is that the only reason you said no?"

"It's not," he admitted. "I just...I'm a disappointment in everything else I do, you know. You've said that you enjoyed sex with your ex, well my wife never enjoyed me. Like that."

She regretted telling him all that now. It was the truth, but it also wasn't. She had enjoyed it. Physically, it had been good. But at the same time, she'd never felt safe. She'd never felt cherished or really loved. She'd never felt any of the things you were supposed to feel with a man, and she wanted to feel them now. She was almost thirty years old and she'd never had a man actually love her enough to want her to enjoy sex for her own sake and not as a sign of his virility. But how was she supposed to tell him that while she was trying to seduce him? That she wanted it to be him simply because he cared enough to fear disappointing her?

"You wouldn't hurt me," she said. "Or do anything I didn't want, would you?"

"No, of course not."

He sounded almost offended by her question, and that was why she wanted him.

"See? I've never really had that before and I just want to know how it feels. I won't hate you and I won't judge you. All I want is to feel good about myself for a few minutes, and I want you to feel good, too."

"And the...my problem?"

"We'll use a condom," she said. "We'd have needed to use one anyway. And I'll know to get tested later."

He still looked unsure, but she had said all she knew to say so instead she learned forward and kissed him gently. He was so gentle when he kissed her back, surely this had to be the right choice.

"Alright," he said once they had broken the kiss. "If you're sure you really want to."

They left the movie early, before either could lose their nerve, and went to a gas station to buy a small pack of condoms. Bae was home with a babysitter, and neither one wanted any potential witnesses to what they were doing, so they returned to the clearing where they had kissed for the first time and spent hours holding each other in the car.

It had been a long time since Bobby had tried to have sex in the backseat of a car, and he wasn't entirely sure how they would even manage it without high school eagerness and flexibility on their side. The location was just adding to his nerves about the whole damn thing. He hadn't even been positive if they were really _dating_ dating or just been going out as friends until that moment and quite frankly he still wasn't sure just exactly what this was all about. She wanted to have sex with him, but she had also said it was a one time thing. If he was sensible at all, he'd ask her what she really hoped to get, but there was a part of him that was so desperate for her acceptance in this that he didn't dare question her and risk her changing her mind.

He parked under the shadow of some trees, further away from the other cars than he usually would have. Now that they were there with the three pack of condoms sitting next to her feet, they both seemed to have lost their nerve. They were both staring straight ahead and not even touching each other – Bobby couldn't even take his hands off the steering wheel. This had been a mistake, and he just knew that she was going to ask him to take her back to the shelter and he thought he might actually be relieved when she did.

"You okay?" she said softly, and he realized now that she was looking at him.

"Yeah. You?"

"I'm a little nervous, but I'm okay."

"We don't have to do this."

"But I want to. With you. I like the idea of it." She was blushing a little bit, and for a long moment he couldn't quite remember how to breathe before she spoke again. "Should we get in the backseat?"

He nodded and they both quietly got out before settling on the spacious backseat. Thank God he'd gotten a bigger car because it would be safer, he couldn't imagine trying to do this in a sedan.

There was a small part of him that felt like he was going to a firing squad, but that all evaporated when she put her head on his shoulder again. He really did like her, and as scared as he was, she was right – it had been so long since anyone actually _wanted_ him that he could barely remember what it felt like to not be a burden.

Bobby had never been the type to have sex just because the opportunity presented itself, but she had said she wanted a sexual encounter that wasn't with someone who would hurt her, and that was an impulse he more than understood. He was tired of sex feeling wrong – tired of feeling judged, or used or - worse - tolerated. If he could make Belle happy, then it would be proof that the problem didn't lie with him. It would be his own personal redemption.

Belle had her hand on his thigh, and that shouldn't feel as shocking as it did considering what they were about to do, but he felt like his skin was tightening around his skeleton until she turned slightly and leaned in to kiss him on the lips. This part they had done before, and she had liked it enough that now she wanted more and that was an encouraging thought.

He pulled her into his lap, and was rewarded with Belle shifting so that she was straddling him with one knee on either side of his thighs and her skirt hitched up to her hips. Her panties were tiny – baby pink see-through mesh and lace that dipped down in front – and nothing at all like he would imagine she would choose for herself. He couldn't follow that train of thought to its conclusion or this wasn't going to work, but the sooner those came off the happier he was going to be.

Bobby drew his eyes back to her face and contented himself with nuzzling into her neck while he drew little circles up and down her thighs with his fingers. Mercifully, she seemed to like that and started running her fingers through his hair slowly as he touched her legs. She really had beautiful legs, and this was the first (and possibly last) time he had ever been invited to admire them, and that was an opportunity he didn't plan to waste.

"You're beautiful," he whispered. "You really are."

She froze for a split second, but then he felt her relax into him and she tugged his hair just enough to tilt his head back far enough to kiss him again. This time was slower than before but deeper, and he felt himself begin to stir beneath her as she pressed herself into him. He hadn't realized how worried he was about being able to perform for nervousness until then and it was such a relief that he was responding to her that he almost forgot himself and leaned her back.

If they'd been in a bed, he would have wanted to undress her slowly and spend hours worshipping her body until he was sure he'd done well by her, but the car didn't lend itself well to such things and all he could do was maneuver one of his hands beneath her so he could touch her through her panties. The position was awkward, but she was making all the right sounds and he had to trust that she wouldn't fake it.

"Is this okay?" he asked her, hoping it wasn't too pitiful a question as he teased her with his fingers. He never should have agreed to doing this in the car. Even a motel would have been better where they could properly attempt it, in here he was already at a disadvantage against literally every man she'd ever slept with.

"It is," she said. "I like it."

She moved her hips on top of him and he was absolutely sure he was going to come just from watching her do that. He wanted to see so much more of her, though.

"Can you...do you mind if I take your shirt off?"

She smiled in response and pulled it off over her head quickly. She was wearing a bra that matched the panties in pink sheer with lace appliques accentuating her nipples and a series of straps outlining her breasts. It was sexy, but it wasn't _her_ and it wasn't good enough for her. Bobby glanced around for something to cover her with and thankfully there was a blanket back here that Bae had left. He grabbed it off the seat and draped it over her shoulders before reaching his hands behind her back to unfasten the bra and pull it away. Once it was gone, she looked so much more like herself that he couldn't help but feel relieved even though her fingers were now working the buttons of his shirt open. It was only fair, and he cast the shirt off as soon as she'd finished unbuttoning it. She was teasing his skin with her fingernails, raking them just hard enough down his chest that he wanted to shiver at the sensation but not enough to hurt, never enough to hurt.

Emboldened, Bobby slid his hand down the front of her panties. Somehow, she was wet from anticipation in spite of his clumsy backseat fumblings and he could have cried from relief. He didn't want to disappoint, and he didn't want to put her off him by being worse than she was used to.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked. He hated needing to ask her what she liked, but he knew he was bad at this, and he liked her too much to want to risk it.

"Isn't it obvious?" she teased and he flinched. He _knew_ she didn't mean anything by it, but he couldn't help the reaction. He was so, so bad at this and it was a mistake to even try.

He could see the moment Belle recognized the source of his distress, because her smile changed from happy to something else. It wasn't cruel or mocking, but she almost looked sad and like she pitied him and that was worse. Mocking he could have handled, he'd certainly done it before – but pity was so very different and he suddenly felt smaller and weaker than usual.

"I like this," she said quietly. "Please don't stop."

Bobby began stroking her folds tentatively again, wishing he were anyone else right now.

"Like before," she prompted him gently, stroking his hair and down to his chin. "It was so, so good."

He wasn't even sure what he'd been doing before, but she kissed him softly and started moving her hips against his hand again. He knew enough to stay relatively still when she did that and to let her just use him to find her own pleasure. It was possible she could be content with that, and he wouldn't have to embarrass himself any further.

"Could you put your fingers inside me?" she asked and he readily complied, curling two fingers into her and stroking her softly.

"Like that?"

"Perfect," she gasped, moving her hips again and tilting her head back so that her breasts were thrust towards his face. "Can you put your thumb a little bit to the left?"

He did as she asked and she sighed happily before she began moving at a slow and steady pace. She was still wet, so he hadn't ruined that by getting upset at least – he just wanted her to like him. He was sure he could stand anything else as long as she didn't stop liking him. He recognized it as a silly worry, and that she wouldn't have asked him to do this if she didn't, but he couldn't shake the fear that he would do something to ruin her opinion of him.

Her breasts were in his eyeline and bouncing softly as she rode his fingers. He wanted to be able to lean forward and take one into his mouth, but he wasn't sure how to ask for that and he wasn't sure if she'd like it or not. They were beautiful though, small and perky and pale topped with rosy pink nipples that were just begging to be touched. He leaned forward enough to kiss her collarbone and her neck, and she responded by making a series of soft noises of pleasure that emboldened him enough to kiss down to the tops of her breasts.

"Oh, yes!" she gasped suddenly. "That's nice. I like that."

His heart did a little flip at the spontaneous praise, and he sucked the flesh of one of her breasts into his mouth softly only to be rewarded by another little pleased murmur so he repeated it on the other side for the same results. When he moved down to her nipples, she bucked her hips harder against his thumb and he felt his erection come roaring back to life at the noises she was making. He rested his free hand against the small of his back while he nipped and sucked his way across her breasts from top to bottom, revelling in the purrs of pleasure that she made when he drew his tongue across the undersides of them and the way she cooed her approval when he suckled at her pretty pink nipples. She was enjoying him, and he couldn't be more relieved.

After far too little time exploring her chest and curling his fingers inside her, she suddenly yelped and tilted forward and he could feel her muscles tightening around his fingers. He petted her hair and sent up a silent prayer of thanks that he'd done this much at least right. She was happy and content, and he was safe. He just wished he could have done it with her.

"That was so good," she said once she had calmed down. "I'm having so much fun."

There was a thin sheen of sweat on her face, and he suddenly realized the windows were fogged up. If it weren't so cold outside it would be unbearably hot, and even with the cool autumn air the inside of the car was uncomfortably warm.

"Are you alright?" he asked, almost dreading the answer. She seemed happy, but still. "Do you want me to take you home?"

She looked confused for a split second but then there was that kind smile again and she shook her head.

"I'm not ready to go yet," she said. "I'm having a really good time."

She kissed his forehead before climbing off of him and grabbing the pack of condoms from the front seat. She'd discarded the blanket he'd cast over her for modesty, and wriggled out of her panties leaving her sweaty and mussed in just a skirt and a little diamond pendant. It was like high school come true.

"Lay down," she said, pulling his arm gently and arranging him so he was half propped up by the door at his back with one leg on the seat and one on the floor to hold himself up.

He had known that she planned to have sex with him, and he'd even bought the condoms, but somehow in the bliss of watching her come undone his mind had decided that this was enough for her and that she had gotten what she wanted now. He was completely frozen at the prospect of what was coming next, and couldn't even help her as she unzipped his trousers and worked them down his hips enough for his erection to spring free. He was completely useless.

"What do _you_ like?" she asked him from her seat across his thighs. "It's your turn now."

"You – you _really_ don't have to do that."

"I want to," she said calmly, rubbing his chest down to his belly and teasing the smattering of hair with her fingers. "I'm really good at using my mouth if you want that. Or whatever else. Tell me what you like."

His mouth had gone completely dry at the mental image she'd conjured, and maybe someday he would take her up on it, but the way she'd said it so nonchalantly brought up more questions he was sure he didn't want answers to and besides, he enjoyed _her_.

"I like you," he said at last. "And if you want to know what I like, then that's my answer."

"I like you, too," she said, leaning over him and brushing the hair back from his face. "But I want to know how you'd like to be touched. I want it to be good for us both, not just me."

Holy shit, it was good for her? He knew she'd had an orgasm, but that didn't mean a whole lot in his experience. An orgasm was like having an itch scratched, it was good but it didn't always mean _good_. And now she was asking what he wanted her to do, when really all he wanted was to hear in exquisite detail that she'd enjoyed the last part of their encounter. She could do nothing but tell him all about it for the next hour and he'd be content. Nobody had ever asked him what he wanted them to do before, and he couldn't think of anything to ask for except for that.

"Talk to me?" he asked her. His face was burning even making the request, but her face lit up as soon as he said it, so it must have been the right choice. "Tell me what you're thinking."

"You were so good before," she said, teasing his chest hair a little bit and dragging her fingers down to rub his thighs. "You have _really_ nice hands and your fingers felt so, so good inside me."

He couldn't breathe, and he could barely nod in encouragement. He didn't dare take his eyes off of her as she fished out a foil packet from the box and ripped it open to reveal the condom which she worked down his length before she began stroking his cock with a gentle grip.

"You have a really nice cock," she said and his kneejerk reaction was to tell her she was wrong or lying, but she was blushing a little bit and almost looked shy having said it. She wasn't a practiced seductress – or if she was, she wasn't being one with him. He'd never been so happy.

"What were you thinking about earlier?" he asked her. "When you came. If you don't mind telling me."

It was a risky question, but even if it wasn't him he wanted to know what had brought her off when she couldn't bear to look at him.

"I was thinking about you," she replied as she stroked him again and again. "I wasn't thinking of anything in particular. I was just remembering that it was your hand inside me and your mouth on my breasts and how good it all felt. You made me feel so, so good."

He was sure he was undone, but then she was suddenly moving to straddle him again and guiding him inside of her and _oh God_ it was so, so perfect. It was like his entire life had been leading to this one stolen moment and he had to hold it together because once he came it would be over and who knew if he would ever have another one like it?

"Oh, Bobby," she gasped. "You feel so good! Oh my...I would have asked for this first if I'd known! You're perfect – you're absolutely flawless."

Every word out of her mouth was like water in the desert and he didn't dare speak for fear of missing one, but she kept up a constant stream as she began to ride him slowly. She was telling him how much she enjoyed him and how nice his hands felt on her breasts and how good it felt to be full of him. She told him that she wanted more of him, that she didn't want to stop and that he was perfect inside of her. She gasped and moaned things like _faster_ and _I want you_ when words started to fail her, and by the time he couldn't resist thrusting up into her harder and faster, pulling her hips down onto his in his frantic desire for her, she screamed and shuddered and fell apart with him crying out his name before collapsing panting on his chest.

And then afterward, when they were both spent and overheated, she brushed the hair off of his face and kissed away the tears that he couldn't stop from coming. It should have been embarrassing to cry like that, but he didn't have the words to tell her that it hadn't ever felt like that for him before. It had been so long since he'd even felt good after sex, and he'd never had someone make him feel so wanted and desired, and it hurt so badly to know that their time together was limited. He loved her so much. He didn't want to let her go.


	12. Chapter 12

Bae was lonesome. He missed the kids at the shelter. He still saw them sometimes at school, but it wasn't the same. There was a playground at the new place, but since he stayed at the afterschool program it was already dark when they got home so he never got to go to it. It wasn't so bad, because his dad was still there, but he still missed his friends. It made him angry. First he'd lost his friends at his old home and now he had lost the ones at the shelter. He hadn't wanted to leave with Dad, so why did they have to?

He was getting into trouble at school and his teachers said he knew better and he _did_ but it was so hard sometimes like there was a monster that lived inside of him that just made him have to do things he knew he wasn't supposed to do. And now his dad was going to have to go to a meeting with the teacher to talk about his behavior. Bae's dad hadn't ever had to go to a meeting at the school before and he didn't know what to say. His dad looked so sad when he saw the note that came home that Bae felt like he'd disappointed him. Maybe he had.

"Is there something you want to tell me?" Dad asked and Bae just shook his head. "Do you want to tell me your side of the story before I see your teacher?"

"No," Bae said, trying hard not to look at his dad.

Dad sighed and put his face in his hands and sighed.

"Did you get into a fight?" Dad asked and Bae wasn't a liar, so he nodded.

"It wasn't my fault," Bae said because it _wasn't_ , was it?

"What happened?"

"I don't know."

"So you just got into a fight for no reason?" Dad asked, waiting until Bae didn't respond before he continued. "Okay, then how is school besides the fights?" – Bae shrugged – "Do you like your teachers?" – he shrugged again – "Are you having problems with anything?"

Dad was starting to sound weird and when Bae looked up, he realized that he was crying. Bae had made his dad cry.

"I'm sorry," Bae said and he hugged his dad all in a rush. He was gonna start crying, too. He _hated_ seeing Dad cry.

"It's okay," Dad said in a soft voice. He pulled Bae into his lap and held him tight and it felt safe there. Dad always made him feel safe even when things were so scary. "I just wish I knew how to help you," Dad continued. "That's all."

Bae nodded and wiped his eyes with his fists. He didn't want to make his dad sad, but he also didn't know how to say what was wrong. There were so many _feelings_ and not enough _words_.

"Do you...do you miss your mom?" Dad asked softly. "You can tell me the truth, it won't hurt my feelings."

"I don't know," Bae admitted. "Kinda, but not. I miss her, but I don't miss you fighting, or when she was angry, or her friends."

"What friends?" Dad asked, and Bae quickly realized he'd made a mistake. "Bae, did your mom have friends in the house?"

It was supposed to be a secret, but he'd told Dr. Hopper and Dr. Hopper had said that it wasn't a secret that Bae should have to keep and he was just so tired of lying.

"Just one in the house," Bae said at last. "But sometimes people came in cars and she'd go outside with them."

"Who was in the house?" Dad asked. "Was it a man or a woman?"

"A man."

"Where were they?"

"In your bedroom." Bae didn't want to tell, but the more he said the better he felt.

"When was this?"

"The day I hurt my face."

"Did he – did he hit you?"

Dad's hands were tightening in Bae's shirt and it was starting to make him nervous, so he just shook his head instead of answering.

"So how did you get hurt?"

"I'm sorry," Bae said trying not to cry. "I know I wasn't supposed to go in your room but I knocked and nobody answered but I _heard_ a noise so I opened the door. I know I shouldn't have."

"It's okay," Dad said, hugging him tight again. "I'm not mad, I promise I just want to know what happened. It scares me so much not knowing. Please just tell me. You won't be in trouble."

Bae sniffled and tried to make his thoughts make sense. He didn't like thinking about it and he didn't want to remember.

"The door hit me," he said at last. "When her friend slammed it."

"I'm sorry that happened," Dad said and he rested his chin on Bae's head. It hurt a little bit but it was comforting, too. "I'm sorry you got hurt, but I promise you that it's never going to happen again. Nobody will _ever_ hurt you again."

Bae nodded as well as he could and let his dad just hold him a little bit longer.

Bobby wasn't sure what to do. He wanted to track down Milah's boyfriend and set him on fire, but he also wanted to just hold his son as tight as he could and make sure that he would never come to harm ever again. He also wasn't sure how he was ever going to forgive himself – Bae had been hurt because he hadn't left Milah sooner and he would have to live with that the

rest of his life.

Bae finally got squirmy and Bobby had to let him go. It was almost time for dinner anyway and then homework and bathtime and bedtime and then he could finally take a few minutes to figure out what the hell he thought about all this. He felt like a robot going through the motions of fatherhood until it was finally time to tuck his son into bed.

It had been one thing to know that Milah had been unfaithful, and the syphilis really hadn't left much room for doubt. Knowing that Bae had seen, though...just when he'd thought it couldn't possibly get any worse, his son had witnessed her infidelity. If it had to happen, why did Bae have to witness it? It was the final degradation, the last little bit of emasculation she possible could have managed. There was no getting away from it, either – no forgetting what she'd done now that his son was a witness. It would always be hanging there in between them no matter what. The idea of it left Bobby exhausted and sad all over again.

The important thing to remember was that the divorce would be over in a few months. They were just waiting out the courts at this point, and then maybe he could be free of her at last. She never cared much about spending time with Bae anyway, and she'd forget all about them soon enough with any luck at all.

His first instinct was to text Belle and try and seek some sort of comfort from her approval of him, but he squashed that urge. He didn't want to bother her or make her pity him, especially not now that they'd been intimate. God, that was a whole other series of things he had to worry about. It had been so long since he had to navigate the politics of post-coital contact that he hadn't known what to do. Ultimately, he'd decided to err on the side of being too desperate. With their pasts, he didn't want to risk her thinking he didn't like her or didn't respect her, so he had sent her a text the next day. Just a simple good morning, but he'd been on tenterhooks until she replied which had thankfully been within a few minutes of his initial message.

They had gone back and forth like that for a few days, just simple messages and absolutely no talking about what they'd done. He still wasn't sure what it had all meant, but he didn't think he regretted it even though he probably should. It was absolutely the wrong time all around, but it had been a balm to his soul to be accepted by her. It had been terrifying, but it had meant something, too. He just wasn't so sure of what it meant that he wanted to drop this newest defeat onto her lap. She had enough going on of her own without adding his every setback onto her plate.

He was aching to invite her to stay with him, but something kept him from doing it. He'd seen Gaston the one time, and the idea of inviting that into his son's life terrified him. Maybe he was just a coward, but as much as he liked her he couldn't let Bae come to any more harm than he already had, and Gaston would be nothing but dangerous to him. Maybe when the due date for the baby he thought she was carrying approached he would realize that he was wrong, or maybe he'd just realize what she'd done when she left and lash out. Bobby didn't have much experience with stalkings, but what he knew of them was that at any point it could escalate. She was really safest where she was, even though she was truly stuck there and couldn't leave.

Bobby tried not to think too much about it as he went about his own nightly routine. It was lonely to be in the apartment with only Bae, but it was peaceful, too, and as much as he craved adult companionship he had to admit it was nice to know precisely where their next meal was coming from and where his son was. There were no surprises here, and he liked not having to worry for once.

It was strange, but the longer he was alone the more he noticed little habits he'd developed while living with Milah that he hadn't even recognized as odd. The other day, the receptionist at work had walked into a room he was already in without announcing herself and he was so startled to realize that she was there that he practically threw the papers he was holding. The poor girl had been apologetic and helped him pick them up while he tried to make excuses for his behavior. She'd responded by asking where he had served and said her brother had a hard time adjusting when he got back from Afghanistan when he had been too shocked to respond. He didn't have the heart to tell her that he'd never been in the army, although it was probably better to be thought a veteran than to have them know the truth, in any event. He still felt like an asshole the rest of the day, but at least his secret was safe.

There was a strange sense of shame to all of this. He'd been told over and over again that it wasn't his fault and that it happened to men the same as women, but it was hard to believe it. He knew how people felt about men like him. He'd seen the way the women at the shelter had watched him awkwardly and heard the jokes people in the outside world made about it. It was hard to believe something wasn't your fault when so many people seemed so intent on blaming you for it happening.

His phone shook on the nightstand, and when he checked it he wasn't surprised to see a message from Belle.

 _Can I call you?_

It was late, but not so late and he needed something to take his mind off the melancholy. Besides, he hadn't spoken to her since he had dropped her off after their last date.

 _Sure,_ he sent back.

It only took a few moments before the screen lit up with her name and he had hit the _talk_ button before it even started really ringing.

"Hey," he said, hoping his voice wouldn't betray his excitement to hear her voice. "What's up?"

"Nothing too much," she replied. "Just going stir crazy in this place. How are things with you?"

"Going well. Bae got into a fight at school, but otherwise not bad."

"I'm sorry. That sounds rough."

"He's still little, so there's some time, but I'm not happy about it. But you didn't call to listen to me complain."

"I can listen," she said softly. "I've been so bored here! There's nothing to do except try to make friends, and I'm not very good at that."

"You could have fooled me."

"You weren't good at making friends, either. It was easier that way."

"I'm not sure if I get your logic, but I guess I see your point. Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah," she said and he thought she was probably trying to sound more sure than she did. "You know me. I always land on my feet."

He was so scared for her. She sounded even more tired than he felt, and he knew this wasn't a long term solution to her problems. Something eventually _had_ to give.

"I'm here if you need me," he said at last, although he knew she wouldn't take him up on it no matter how much he meant it – he wouldn't have in her shoes, either.

Belle was quiet for a long moment and he just listened to the sound of her breathing and tried to imagine where she was. She was probably locked in her bedroom at the shelter, but he wanted her to be on their bench at the playground with an unsmoked cigarette in her hand, all full of false bravado and her surprising vulnerability.,

"I do have a favor I need to ask," she said and he could hear how little she wanted to ask in her quavering voice. "But you're not going to like what it is."


	13. Chapter 13

Belle had known Bobby wouldn't like the favor she had, and she hadn't been wrong. A place had opened up at another shelter. Well, it was opening up. Someone was moving and Belle would be able to leave the state sometime in the next month or so.

The lady in the shelter office told her to start getting her affairs in order, and she was determined to do so. Step one had been taking an inventory of all her important papers to decide what she still needed. That was when she had realized she was missing her birth certificate. It shouldn't mean to much to replace it, even if she would need to have a new one sent from Australia, but that had been the one her parents had brought home from the hospital – it was the one her mother had touched and a photograph of her mother holding _that_ birth certificate was one of the first pages in her baby book.

Besides the sentimental value, she was nervous about letting Gaston keep any of her personal documents. She didn't want to risk him opening accounts in her name, or become even more financially tied to him than she already was. So, she needed a ride back to her old home and Bobby was the only one she'd trust to go with her.

It wasn't as dangerous as it sounded, really. Ever since she'd known him he'd gone out on Friday nights with the guys from work. He never came home before eleven (usually drunk), and she still had her house key. She could be in and out without him even realizing she was there, and then she'd be able to leave for good.

"Are you sure about this?" Bobby asked her for what was at least the third time. "There has to be a better way to go about getting a birth certificate."

"Like what? Call the cops and ask them to come help?"

"Okay, that sounds like a perfect solution."

"It's going to take ages if they'd even come," she said. "I just – I want this to be over. I just need to get a few papers and I can leave and he'll probably never even notice I was ever here and then I can leave and it'll be safe. I have to get out of this town."

He sighed, but he didn't argue with her any further as he parked in the street and got out, walking down the driveway to the garage and peeking in before nodding to her that the car was gone and it was safe for them to go inside. She hadn't ever realized how isolated this place was before, though perhaps that's why Gaston had wanted to live in a small house on a big lot set far back from the street behind some trees – no witnesses. The place felt so different now. It was oppressive in a way she hadn't been aware of when she'd lived there. She didn't want to go in, she just wanted to call it quits and run back to the shelter where she was safe but she had come this far. She just _had_ to do it, and then she'd be through with him once and for all.

Bobby was at her elbow as she crossed the threshold into the living room. It was eerily quiet, and she just wanted to turn all the lights on and reassure herself there were no monsters lurking in the shadows waiting to attack as soon as she let down her guard.

Gaston had always kept the important papers in the spare bedroom he used as his office, so that was where she decided to start looking. He had a safe under his desk that she didn't know the combination to, but there were plenty of other places to look before she started panicking and tried to crack it. She could see Bobby lurking in the hall and looking uncomfortable as she pulled out files and flipped through them, her silent guard.

She didn't have any luck in his filing cabinet, so she dropped into the desk chair and started fishing through the drawers. In the top one, she found his gun. She'd almost forgotten he had that. Her first instinct was to shove it back into the drawer and pretend like it didn't exist but instead she slipped it into her pocket. If anyone needed protection it was her, and she'd feel a lot safer knowing that Gaston didn't have it even if she just threw it into a river on their way home.

Belle shut the top drawer, and continued searching. There was another set of files in the bottom drawer, and thankfully one of them had her name on it. She pulled it out and glanced inside. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw her birth certificate and copies of her green card and a few other important documents.

"I found it," Belle called to Bobby and he stepped into the office.

"All good?"

"Yeah," she said. "It's everything I came for."

It was her entire life, and it fit into a thin folder tucked into a drawer. Her fingers were shaking as she clung to it. How could this really be everything? Her entire life?

She practically jumped out of her skin when she felt a hand on her shoulder, but it was just Bobby. He looked concerned but didn't say anything – she must have been sitting longer than she thought. She sighed and got to her feet and walked back to the living room. The house felt even more oppressive than it had on the way in, but it was so familiar she just wanted to curl into a ball and stop moving. It would be so easy to stay, and it was so hard to leave.

"I just need a minute," she said, moving towards the kitchen. She wouldn't go back, but there were things she still missed.

The pantry looked like she'd left it – he'd clearly not been cooking for himself – right down to her special tea tin in the back of the highest shelf she could reach. He'd never know it was missing, and it was the one luxury she'd missed the most. She grabbed it off the shelf and cradled it like a child before turning and walking back into the kitchen. Bobby was standing stock still in the middle of the floor, and before Belle could even tell him she was ready to leave she heard a familiar voice saying her name.

Her eyes shot up to the kitchen door where Gaston stood. She wasn't sure if she was hallucinating or not at first, but Bobby was staring straight at Gaston, too, and she knew she wasn't hallucinating that.

Bobby had known this was a bad idea. He never should have agreed to take her. It wasn't safe, it never had been safe, and now they were standing in Gaston's kitchen while he stared Belle down. Bobby's mind was working overtime trying to figure out what to do – there was a violent stranger blocking their one exit, the neighbors were too far away to hear any signal for help, he had his phone but the only place he and Belle could possibly retreat to was the pantry. His plan was running through his head over and over again like a mantra: pull Belle back to the pantry, try to hold the door shut, call the police. Belle to the pantry. Shut the door. Call the police.

He shifted his weight towards her as slowly as he could, but neither Gaston nor Belle were moving at all. They were staring at each other unblinkingly, and Bobby wasn't sure what to do. Time seemed to stop into the kitchen and Bobby wanted to run but he couldn't make himself _move_.

"Belle," Gaston said slowly as though he couldn't quite believe they'd actually broken in either and that seemed to snap Belle out of her fugue.

"Don't touch me," she shrieked, jumping away from both Gaston and Bobby.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Gaston shouted, taking a big step towards Belle which prompted her to shrink further away. "And who the hell is this?"

"I said don't touch me," she said, inching herself in a large arc away from Bobby and he realized she was trying to hold Gaston's attention onto herself.

Bobby mimicked Belle's movements, trying to stay across from her as she edged her way towards the exit. They just had to get to the car and it would all be okay.

"Let's just talk about this," Gaston was saying, obviously trying to charm her closer. "I'm sorry about the last time."

"No," Belle replied in a tiny voice. "I don't want to talk. I just had to get some papers please just let me go."

Gaston lunged and Belle shrieked and leapt back towards the pantry. Bobby tried to stay parallel to her, but Gaston was still blocking him from actually moving any closer.

"God dammit, Belle!" Gaston shouted. "What the fuck are you _doing_ with this guy? Is this who you left me for?"

He was gesturing towards Bobby now, and Belle just shook her head but Gaston had managed to get close enough now that as soon as he lunged for her again Bobby knew he'd get her. Gaston had his hands on Belle's neck, and she dropped her papers and the tea tin onto the floor as she scratched his wrists and hands and tried to pry his fingers off of her.

Bobby jumped to her defense before he could even think about what a bad idea it was. He managed to knock Gaston off balance enough to release Belle, but the other man quickly threw him hard against the wall where Belle had been and Bobby crumpled to the floor, stunned. He saw Gaston on Belle again – she'd been thrown against the other wall and now she was curled in on herself as Gaston hit her over and over again demanding to know what had happened to the baby. Bobby had to stop him, because if he didn't they were both going to die.

He got himself back to a sitting position and that's when he saw it – a handgun sitting on the floor next to where he sat. It had been a long time since he'd held a gun, but his father had insisted a man needed to know how to shoot and as a child he'd been a fairly good marksman.

The handgun was a familiar weight in Bobby's hand, and he stood up, leaning on the wall for support without his cane.

"Hey!" he called out, cocking the gun to draw Gaston's attention onto him. "Get off of her!"

Shock registered on Gaston's face, and he quickly got to his feet with his hands in the air.

"Alright," Gaston said easily. "Hey, whatever you want, buddy. Just put the gun down."

"Belle, are you okay?" Bobby asked. She had picked herself up off the floor, though she remained halfway seated and he could see blood on her face.

"Yeah," she said, moving away from Gaston and Bobby went to help her up. She looked terrible, and he was going to have to bring her to the hospital afterward to be looked at.

He must have taken his attention off Gaston for too long, because the next thing he knew he was being shoved backwards again and slid across the floor while Gaston stood over Belle. Bobby somehow managed to hold onto the gun, though, and on instinct he brought the gun back to ready and pulled the trigger.

Belle screamed and scrambled away from Gaston as he slumped to the floor, and it took Bobby a half a second to realize what he'd just done – he hadn't even really been sure if the gun was loaded or not until that moment.

Bobby could barely put together what had happened as he stared at the rapidly expanding pool of blood beneath Gaston's body. The kitchen was once again motionless, but this time it was Belle who broke the stillness. She crawled closer to Gaston and put her fingers to his neck checking for a pulse before shrinking backwards again and covering her face with her hands. She looked back over to him again, and got to her feet and rushed over to where he still sat on the floor.

"Are you okay?" she asked, pulling the gun from his grasp and wiping the handle on her skirt. He wanted to ask what she was doing, but all he could manage to do was nod. "Good," she continued. "You haven't spoken to me since last night, okay?"

"What?"

"I called you last night and told you I ran into Gaston and he wanted to talk and you said it was a bad idea."

No, last night she'd called and asked him to do her this favor and now he'd shot a man.

"Do you understand?" Belle asked him urgently. "You were never here."

"I – no. _What?_ "

"Go home," she said firmly. "Go home to your son – he needs you to go home. It'll be okay, but you have to _hurry_."

He was having trouble putting thoughts into words and there was just so much happening his brain couldn't keep up with any of it, but she had gotten his cane and was helping him to his feet. All he could do was follow as she walked him around the puddle of blood and to the front door.

"Give Bae my love," she said and she shut the door.

Bobby's hands were shaking as he got into his car. There weren't even any lights on at the neighbor's houses as he pulled out and drove out of the neighborhood as fast as he dared. He was already halfway home before he realized what she was doing, but by then it was too late to do anything besides make it worse. – she was covering for him, and he just hoped against hope that she knew what she was doing.


	14. Chapter 14

_9-1-1, what's your emergency?_

 _I shot my boyfriend._

 _Ma'am?_

 _I shot my boyfriend._

 _Okay, is he breathing?_

 _No –_ here there was some muffled sobbing and unintelligible murmurs – _there's no pulse, either. I think he's dead._

 _Ma'am, have the sheriff and EMTs on their way. Are you alone in the house?_

 _Yes._

 _Alright, where's the gun?_

 _I have it._

 _Okay can you put it down and go outside to wait for them?_

 _Yeah._

 _I'm going to tell them that you'll be waiting outside. And you'll be unarmed, right?_

 _The gun is on the floor. Please have them hurry._

 _I'll tell them. I'm going to stay on the line with you until they get there, okay?_

 _Okay._

Belle hadn't had long between Bobby leaving and her needing to call 911 but somehow everything had been so clear in her head. Bobby hadn't been hurt, so none of the blood was going to be his. She didn't think he'd touched anything besides the gun and she'd wiped that clean.

She'd remembered Bobby being almost to the pantry when he'd fired, so she fired a single shot into the ceiling over her head and then another into the opposite wall. That should be enough to get gunpowder on her. She was trying to think back to her freshman year roommate who had been obsessed with true crime shows to see if there was anything else that she could do, but nothing was coming to mind. She couldn't let Bobby get involved in any of this – at least not more than he already was. Coming back had been her idea, and he'd only shot Gaston to protect her. Besides, he had his son to worry about. Bae would either end up in foster care or back with his mother if Bobby was caught, and Belle couldn't have that on her conscience. This was her fault and she would take care of it.

Once she was sure she'd done all she could, she set the gun down next to Gaston's body and called emergency services. The sheriff and the female deputy were the first to arrive, and she sat quietly on the porch stairs as they approached.

"Evening, Belle," Sheriff Humbert said softly, stopping in front of her. "Is he inside?"

"Yeah," she said. "In the kitchen. With the gun."

"That's good," he said. "Do you mind staying out here with Deputy Swan until the ambulance gets here?"

"Okay. I'm sorry about the mess inside."

He smiled sympathetically and patted her shoulder gently.

"I'm sorry it came to this," he said. "He sure worked you over good tonight, didn't he?"

She didn't answer, but she didn't think he expected her to. He went in and left her outside with the deputy. Neither one of them spoke, but Belle wasn't really in a talking mood. She was tired and scared and her boyfriend was dead in the kitchen after her lover shot him – after _she_ shot him. She had to keep that in mind. She shot Gaston. He had tried to kill her and she shot him.

Deputy Swan didn't try to make conversation, she just looked at Belle with confusion and sympathy all over her face. Once the ambulance arrived, the deputy vanished into the house and she was left with the EMTs as they checked her injuries. This part was almost routine – the flashlight in her eyes, the questions about what he'd done to her, and even the part where one of them went inside and told the sheriff she needed to go to the hospital for stitches and an X-ray and came back out with the deputy just as a few more of the sheriff cars pulled in and a few other deputies came out. She recognized a few from previous police calls – it was so humiliating to have them here yet again. They all knew what had happened. Again.

"Hey Belle," Deputy Swan said. "I'm going to come with you to the hospital and ask you a few questions, alright?"

"Yeah," Belle said, looking over to the EMTs to make sure they knew she consented. "I just want to get this over with."

Deputy Swan nodded and followed them to the ambulance, but the paramedics wouldn't let her into the back with Belle. The deputy ended up riding in the cab while Belle was in the rear with one of the paramedics. It was a silent trip to the hospital where the deputy diligently followed her into the ER.

The nurses recognized Belle, and she didn't know what they'd been told but they must have known something because she was whisked into a private room with the deputy almost immediately.

"So you wanna tell me what happened?" the deputy asked.

"Can I call my dad?" Belle asked. "I'd like to let him know I'm alive."

"Yeah, sure," Deputy Swan said. "But first I need you to talk to me. Last I heard you'd moved out of that house."

"I did. I've been staying in the shelter."

"So why did you go back?"

Belle took a deep breath and tried to get her thoughts back in order. She had shot Gaston. She'd done it. It was her.

"I got a place at a shelter out of town," she began. "But when I was getting my paperwork together I realized I'd left some things at the house."

"What kind of things?"

"My birth certificate, some immigration papers. Just...documents, mostly. I ran into him a few days ago and asked about them and he told me to come by tonight if I wanted them. He said he just wanted to talk. I'm so stupid, I know. I just...I needed those papers."

"How'd you get there?"

"He picked me up near the library after he left the bar with his friends."

"He'd been drinking?"

"I guess so. He usually goes out with guys from work on Friday nights, but I didn't ask him where he'd been."

"Okay, so then what?"

"He drove me back to the house. He said he just wanted to talk, and I thought it'd be okay. I just needed a few things and then I could go, but…"

This part was going to be so hard to talk about, but the more reality she could put into this the better she thought it would be, and Deputy Swan had never struck her as the type to get judgmental about this.

"But what?"

"He wanted to know about the baby."

"What baby?"

"When I left last time I was pregnant. He didn't know and I had an abortion, but I guess he figured it out and he was so, so angry at me. I never should have gone back."

It was hard to keep from crying as she recounted that – she had wanted the baby to begin with, and she still felt a little twinge of guilt no matter how much she knew that she hadn't had a choice. He would have killed both of them eventually.

"Hey, it's not your fault, okay? I just need you to tell me what happened in the kitchen."

"I was about to leave, but when I lived there I used to collect really nice tea and I missed it, so I went into the pantry to get my tea tin and when I came out he started asking me about the baby. I didn't know what to do besides tell him, you know? Maybe that was a mistake. He tried to choke me and I just reached my hands up and started scratching his hands to try to get him to let go but he wouldn't!"

"But that wasn't the first time?"

"No," Belle said. "He'd done it a few times before. One time he knocked me unconscious and I think he thought he'd killed me."

"You know that they're a lot more likely to kill you if they choke you, right?"

"I think I'm a _little_ past that being helpful."

"I'm sorry, you're right. What happened next?"

Bobby had knocked him off of her.

"I'm not sure," Belle said instead. "He just let me go. Maybe I hurt him? He was throwing me around the room and screaming at me about the baby and me leaving him and I was sure he was going to kill me. He was punching me and kicking me. It was the worst he's ever been, he was completely out of control."

"Where did the gun come from?"

"I don't know," Belle replied. "It's Gaston's. He showed it to me not long before I left the last time, but I don't know where it was in the house. I guess he had it in a pocket or something and it fell out, but I don't know. I just saw it on the floor and I grabbed it and backed away. He was still coming towards me though, so I fired a warning shot but he wouldn't stop. He just _kept coming_ and I knew he was going to kill me if he got to me so I shot twice and he just collapsed."

Deputy Swan looked like she was going to ask something else, but then a nurse came in and she closed her mouth.

"We're going to need to swab her hands for gunshot residue," the deputy said. "And um, can you check under her nails for skin cells?"

"I know what I'm doing, Deputy," the nurse said before turning to Belle. "We're going to do a full exam. Is there any reason to give you a rape kit?"

"No," she said quietly. "He didn't do anything like that."

"Okay, that's good," the nurse said. "I'm going to swab your hands and under your nails and then once I have those samples for the deputy we can get you cleaned up and check your injuries."

"I'll need her clothes, too," Deputy Swan said weakly. Belle could tell she didn't really want to be doing any of this, but that didn't really make her feel a whole lot better about stripping down to a hospital gown and handing over her clothes to the sheriff's department for testing.

"I want to call my dad," Belle reminded the deputy before she could leave with her evidence bags. "Please."

"I can't give your phone back until we're finished testing it," the deputy said, glancing at the nurse.

"You can use the hospital phone," the nurse said.

Belle gave them her father's phone number and the nurse dialed for her from the room phone before escorting the deputy out of the room. Belle wasn't sure what to say to him, but she just wanted someone else to be in charge for a little while and actually protect her. Bobby had, but she didn't dare contact him tonight or any other night for a long time. She couldn't risk anyone figuring out that she'd seen him or that he'd been present at the house. He needed to be with his son, and she should have done it a long time ago.

It felt like the phone rang for ages, and she hoped her father would be home. It was pretty late and she was sure she'd be waking him up, but she was so tired and she just wanted him to forgive her and be her father again for her because she needed him. Finally, she heard the line connect and her father's sleepy voice on the line, and suddenly she couldn't stop crying.

"Papa?" she sobbed. "It's me."

"Oh my God, Belle?" he said, suddenly wide awake. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"I'm in the hospital," she said. "I killed him, Papa. I killed Gaston."

"Okay, don't talk to anybody, I'll get you a lawyer," he said quickly and she could hear him moving, probably getting out of bed. "Are _you_ okay?"

"I am," she said. "I'm so sorry. I should have listened to you."

"No, Belle," he said and she was sure he was crying now, too. "It's okay. I'll be there in the morning. Just wait for the lawyer, alright? I'll have someone meet you at the hospital."

"Okay," she said. "Thank you."

"It's going to be okay," he said. "I'll take care of everything."

She knew she was an adult and she should be taking care of herself, but it was just so comforting to have somebody else be in charge. Just for a little while, just to get her through this. Then she'd be an adult again and she could try to put her life back together.

The nurse came back a little later and asked Belle how she was doing as she sat down next to the bed.

"We're going to need to photograph your injuries for the police," the nurse said and Belle just nodded.

"Can I get my X-ray soon?" Belle asked. "It kind of hurts when I breathe, I think he may have cracked my rib."

"Of course," she said. "I'll call for a wheelchair and get you down to radiology, and then after that we'll get the pictures, okay?"

Belle nodded, and braced herself – this was going to be a very long night.


	15. Chapter 15

Graham wasn't sure what to make of all this. It was a small town, and they didn't get a lot of homicides out here in the county, and most of the ones they did get were meth related. A few years back, a woman had shot her cheating husband in bed with his girlfriend, but that had been under the old sheriff when Graham had been a deputy. Nothing that dramatic had happened in his jurisdiction in the decade since, and he wasn't particularly thrilled to have it happen now.

He knew better than most that they had a fair few battered women, but he hadn't ever had one end in her killing him. He wished he could have talked her into leaving for a shelter that was further away, but she always went to the one in town and a few months later one of the deputies would be called out to the house on a domestic disturbance like clockwork. It would escalate like that until they'd talk her back into the shelter. Graham had always had it in the back of his mind that he was going to get called out here on a murder one night, but he hadn't expected to find the body of Gaston Wesley and Belle still alive.

The CSU team had to be borrowed from the city and wouldn't be out until the morning, but in the meantime the crime scene would need to be secured and witness statements would need to be taken. There was already a small crowd of neighbors beginning to form at the end of the driveway and the deputies would need to get statements and find out if any of them saw or heard anything. He didn't have much hope that anything would turn up. These sorts of neighborhoods where the houses were set so far apart weren't always the best for reliable witnesses to a crime.

"David, go see if anyone heard anything," he said to one of the deputies. David nodded and let himself out of the house and into the fray. David was good at crowd control, so that at least was under control.

Graham took a long look around the kitchen and tried to figure out what had gone on. The damage to the house seemed contained to the one room, so whatever had happened had happened here. There was a folder of papers scattered on the floor, and a cursory glance told him it was at least mostly her identity documents. There was also a tea tin on the floor halfway between the papers and the open pantry, so whatever had happened she'd been startled near the pantry.

There was some blood splatter on the floor by the wall. He'd need CSU to analyze it and see whose it was, but he was willing to assume that it was where she'd first been attacked. There were long brown hairs a few feet away, and the wall nearest to the body had a hole in it that he had a horrible feeling would be about head height when analyzed. There were two bullet holes he could see besides the one in the body – one in the ceiling and one in a wall. Whatever had happened here, he couldn't shake the feeling that he should have done something more to prevent it.

Deputy Swan arrived back at the house a little before dawn and CSU wasn't far behind. Graham would be happy when all this was over one way or the other. The whole thing had him unsettled.

"Did you get her statement?" he asked Emma, and she nodded and flipped through her notes to the relevant pages before handing him the pad.

"I don't know what to think," she said. "She's missing some details like where the gun came from, but her story fits the scene. And he _had_ been beating her, that's not up for debate."

"What'd she say about the gun?"

"She said she thought maybe he'd had it on him and dropped it during the attack."

"Well, check the registration on it. If it's his then that would support her version."

"I hate these kinds of cases," Emma said, casting a glance to one of the crime scene techs as they photographed the scene. "We have her word and his dead body, and you know his dad is going to raise hell to the DA."

He was not looking forward to that conversation. Mr Wesley was on the town council, and while this wasn't within the town jurisdiction, Graham was positive this wasn't anything that the man would take lightly.

Bobby didn't get a second of sleep all night. He'd gone home, taken a shower, and tried to focus on getting his story straight. Every sound was the police coming to drag him away, every shadow was a SWAT team. He'd killed a man and fled the scene. He'd left Belle to face the consequences of his actions like a coward, and he'd run back home to hide. Thank God that Bae was with a friend and not waiting at home, because Bobby didn't think he could focus on being a father right now. He could barely focus on himself.

He didn't have anywhere to go on Saturday until it was time to get Bae from the sleepover, but Bobby couldn't sit still and relax. He turned the local news on hoping to get a glimpse of what was happening to Belle, but it was just the local morning show at first, and he was stuck watching a smiling redhead making quiche. with a local chef. It was completely interminable, and Bobby found himself walking through the apartment looking for _something_ to do. He ended up re-organizing the kitchen cabinets while he listened to the TV.

Finally, a _breaking news_ bulletin came on, and he dropped the cookie sheet he'd been holding and limped into the living room as fast as he could manage. On the screen, he saw Belle walking next to a blonde woman and looking so small as she was surrounded by cops and cameras as they headed towards the police station. She looked awful – she had a black eye and a split lip, and she was wearing ill-fitting clothes under a too big jacket. They must have given her something to change into at the hospital. The reporter was talking about tragic news and a man being found dead in his home, but all Bobby could focus on was Belle. He couldn't tell from the brief glimpse of her what she might be thinking or feeling, and all he could do was hope that she was okay.

He should have stayed. He never should have left her there to face the consequences by herself. But she had been right that Bae would be sent back to his mother if Bobby went to prison, and he didn't know what to do about that. All he could really do was trust that Belle knew what she was doing and keep putting one foot in front of the other as long as possible.

Belle was exhausted. She'd been at the hospital all night, but between the tests and questions she was practically delirious from exhaustion when she was finally discharged. Her father had come through, and there was a lawyer waiting for her with the police. The woman said her name, but Belle was so tired that she hadn't been able to remember it, and she was a little worried it would be too embarrassing to admit that now.

The deputies had handcuffed Belle and told her that she was under arrest, and from there everything was a blur until they got back to the sheriff station and the reporters were waiting. The walk from the car in her hospital sweatsuit and the attorney's jacket was daunting, and the bright lights and people asking her why she'd done it was so scary somehow even with everything she'd seen. The booking process was just as awful. She was fingerprinted and had her mouth swabbed for DNA before they took mugshots. The attorney was there the entire time watching quietly, but her presence made Belle feel a little bit safer. Finally, she was shown into an interrogation room with the attorney who quickly waved off the deputies before she sat down next to Belle.

"How are you feeling?" the blonde asked her. "Holding up okay?"

"Yeah, thank you," Belle replied. "And thank you for coming so early in the morning."

"Don't worry about that, it's my job."

"So what happens now?"

"You've been arrested, so they're going to take you into custody until you can be arraigned. They'll probably just keep you in a holding cell until the court opens at nine. I'll be there and you're going to have to make a plea to the judge. I'm going to try to get you remanded to your father's custody, but I realistically...you're an immigrant without any strong ties to the community so they're going to want at least some bond and you may have to wear an ankle monitor."

Belle was trying to keep herself awake enough to understand what she was being told, but there was so much going on it was hard to stay on top of it all.

"Did you have any questions for me?" the attorney prompted.

"Have you spoken to my dad?"

"I did, briefly."

"Is he upset?"

The other woman seemed a little taken aback but then her smile softened a bit.

"He's okay," she said. "He seemed a little shaken up, but considering the circumstances I'd say that's understandable. Now, before they take you to court I need you to tell me _exactly_ what happened and what you've already told the police, okay?"

Belle nodded and launched into a recap of the lie she'd made up for the deputy. It was actually getting easier the more she said it and in her exhausted state she was almost starting to believe it was the truth.

"And is that everything?" the lawyer said. "You're not holding anything back? Remember, I'm on your side."

Belle shook her head.

"Okay. So then we're going to have you plead not guilty because of self-defense at your arraignment."

"Am I going to go to jail?"

"Not if I have anything to say about it. You have a very good case. I'm going to be subpoenaing your medical records and the people at the shelter to try to put together evidence of abuse. To be honest, I'd be surprised if it goes to trial. I know his father had some sway with the local government, so that's all I'm really concerned about. As long as you're telling me the truth I'm optimistic about your chances."

Belle wasn't sure how she got through the rest of the day. Arraignment was a blur, but her father posted her bail (which was only fifty-thousand) and she was able to leave from the courthouse. She was beyond the point of exhaustion, but he drove her to the shelter to collect her belongings before taking her to a hotel to finally get some sleep. He never asked her what happened, and she was so grateful for that.

She needed to rest, but as soon as she laid down she just saw Gaston bleeding on their kitchen floor. She'd been so scared and confused and while she'd had to she'd been able to hold it together but as soon as her dad and the attorney took over it all came rushing in. The immediate danger had been dealt with and she was completely unable to handle any of it. She'd seen a man die and covered up what really happened.

Belle laid in bed for a few hours, and she must have dozed at least a little bit because when her father knocked on the door to rouse her for dinner she did feel a little bit better. Getting her first real shower and putting on her own clothes again helped a good deal, too. She was starting to feel sane again. Maybe she could do this, if it really came down to it.


	16. Chapter 16

Belle wasn't sure how she felt about her attorney. She had finally learned the woman's name was Mallory Fitzgerald, and a quick internet search told her that she was apparently pretty good. She did feel a lot better knowing that this woman was on her side, though – especially with the sheer number of hearings and motions being put forth. According to Mallory, the DA wasn't really sure if they were going to take her to trial yet. Officially, they were moving ahead, but there were a lot of forensics still being tested. Apparently, it was a pretty safe bet that once everything came back Belle would be offered a plea bargain.

"We need to get out ahead of them on public relations," the attorney said during a lunch where they were supposed to be working out their legal strategy.

"What do you mean?" Maurice French asked when Belle didn't. She wasn't entirely sure what she really wanted anymore and had sort of checked out of the process. Maybe she did deserve to be in prison, she'd caused a man's death.

"His father has been talking to the press," Mal said. "He's kept this case in the local media and made sure everybody thinks of his son as a former football star fresh out of college, and your daughter is the gold digger who shot him. They're going to be calling for her blood soon if we don't put her in front of a television camera to tell her side."

Belle felt both her father and attorney staring at her, but couldn't bring herself to meet their gaze. The idea of talking about what had happened to her was so overwhelming she couldn't even find the words to express it.

"You'll have to tell your story sooner or later," the lawyer pressed. "And your best chance to avoid charges being filed is to get the public on your side. It's an election year and the DA isn't going to want to do anything to rock the boat."

"What are you saying?" Belle asked.

"I'm saying I think that your very best chance at avoiding jail time is to give some interviews."

"Who would I even talk to?"

"We've had some requests from local outlets," the attorney said smoothly. "Generally, I advise against going to the media but his father's camp has already started it and I'd rather get your side out there."

"You want me to tell them I shot him?"

"No no no," she said. "Don't misunderstand me – you should _absolutely_ not talk about that day at all. What I want you to talk about is the months leading up to it. Talk about your relationship and how you lived, the escalation of violence, your attempts to leave, the things he did and said to you – all of it."

She couldn't contain a whimper at the idea of relating _all_ of that – all of the most horrible things she'd ever lived through – to strangers to be put up for public consumption. What if people hated her? What if they judged her or thought that she was wrong for staying? She knew that she'd been wrong to stay and wrong to go back over and over again, but she'd done it and now she had to do her best to protect Bobby the same way he had protected her.

Belle glanced at her father, her one last concern in all this. She knew that he'd known something was wrong, but he didn't know the horrid details – he'd ever asked and she'd never offered. He gave her a weak smile and reached for her hand gently. She tried to contain her flinch, but she could see on his face the moment that he registered it. This wasn't fair, and it wasn't okay. Everyone she cared about was suffering through all this because of her decisions, but because of his, too! Gaston had hurt her. He had kept her practically captive, and he'd died so she could escape. It was a terrible thing to accept, but there really had been no choice. There hadn't been _any_ choice.

"Okay," Belle said at last. "Tell me what to say, and I'll say it."

"I just want you to tell me what happened, and then we can go from there."

Belle wasn't even sure she wanted to do this. Things had been quiet for a few days before all of a sudden her lawyer started fielding all sorts of phone calls. Apparently, she'd gone viral. Not "cute kitten" viral but after her story hit the local news locals had started posting about it on social media which meant that became a fixture on all the feminist blogs, which had led to all the anti-feminist blogs which had caused a backlash on social media again and that meant that mainstream news had picked it up. That had led to her appearance on _The Gavel with Sidney Glass._ It was one of those news shows that mostly trafficked in long pieces about missing women and children, but they also dabbled in high profile murder trials and Belle was still out on bail for murder until the district attorney decided whether or not to pursue the charges.

She was having an easier time talking about what had happened to her now that she'd started, and not having to talk about the day of the shooting really made it a lot less stressful, since she didn't have to remember to lie.

"Now, Belle, I know you can't talk about anything related to the trial," Sidney said, glancing to the attorney seated to Belle's left. "But I'd like to talk about what's happened since then. You've had a lot of attention from blogs and the media lately – how has that affected you?"

"It's been a very difficult time for me," she said. "There's been a lot of scrutiny on all sides between the media, the police, and social media it's like I'm under fire from all sides sometimes. But there have been good parts, too. A lot of people have reached out to share their own stories of living in abusive relationships and that's been really great. I'm glad that we're talking about it now."

"When this is all over, are you planning to work with other victims?"

"I'm not sure yet. The last few year of my life I didn't really make _any_ choices of my own, and now I'm just trying to adjust to being able to pick what I wear each day and with the trial coming up...I just think I need some time to get used to actually having a future before I start planning for it."

He nodded empathetically, although she could tell there wasn't any real emotion behind it. She was a cynical ratings grab for him, but he was her way of putting pressure on the district attorneys to drop the case. Her job here was to seem as helpless and relatable as possible and make Gaston seem like as big of a monster as she could make him.

"Now, I know this part is traumatic for you," he said gently. "And it might be very disturbing to some of our viewers, but there have been a lot of horrifying allegations made by your attorney about things that happened to you that some people have called into question."

She nodded slowly. She'd known this part was coming – her entire purpose on coming on this show had been to say the horrible things Gaston had done in all their gory detail. Mal wanted a change of venue away from Gaston's father's sphere of influence and this was how she had planned to get it.

"Among them – and I'm just going from your medical records here, which your attorney has provided – you've been in the hospital eight times in five years?"

"That's right."

"You broke four ribs on three separate occasions, you've had a broken collarbone, your arm was broken in two places...last year you had a head injury that resulted in three stitches and a concussion that resulted in an overnight stay where the emergency room nurses noted significant bruising to your chest and back. You also allege that you've been choked unconscious?"

"I had bruising around my neck after that," she continued for him. "I ended up spending a week in a domestic violence shelter where they took pictures of them."

"And yet you returned?"

"It's a difficult thing to explain unless you've been there, Sydney," she said. "He was _so_ charming when we met and so good to me. He treated me like a princess. And when you're with someone like that he makes you feel special in the beginning that by the end you'd do anything to go back to feeling that way. I was just sure that if I said the right combination of words or made the right dinner he'd love me again the way he had. I know it sounds crazy – and it was absolutely insane – to let someone hurt you like that and keep coming back for more? It's a complete breakdown of all of your natural instincts. He completely overrode my entire sense of self."

"You mentioned being in the shelter, how did you decide to go?"

"I've been in and out of the shelter a half dozen times, going back to the first time I thought he might kill me."

"The first time? When was that?"

Belle shut her eyes tight, trying to shut out the memories that were flooding up and threatening to overwhelm. She felt tears starting to prick her eyes, but that was okay. If she could stay pretty while she cried, then that was totally okay.

"About a year ago, he carved his initials into my back."

She could see the production staff, and one of the girls in a headset had tears running down her face now, everyone else just looked stunned. Even Sydney, practiced as he was, seemed upset. It was so calculating to tell this story, but she was so sick of keeping it in anymore.

"He'd been drinking," she continued when he didn't immediately prompt her. "He was always worst when he'd been drinking, and I don't know what got into him that day but I think he thought I was planning to get away from him – which I wasn't at that point – but I'd gone out with a girl I'd known in college and when I got back he was just...waiting for me with this huge knife. He'd hit me before, but this was different. He asked me where I was and when I told him, he accused me of lying and attacked me. I thought he might stab me but he pinned me to the floor on my stomach and ripped my shirt off, and then he just started cutting me. I couldn't tell what he was doing, I just thought he was trying to hurt me but it was a brand. He was marking me as being his so I couldn't ever leave him."

Her stomach rolled and the girl who had been crying had stepped out. The studio was dead silent otherwise.

"And what would you tell a girl who came to you and said that her boyfriend was exhibiting controlling behaviors?"

"I'd tell her to run," Belle said. "I'd tell her not to look back and that it doesn't matter what you have to do to get away, just go before he escalates it even more. He _will_ escalate more, and one of you will wind up dead."

"And there are places you can go for help."

"Yeah, definitely. There are a lot of resources and I've used a lot of them. It doesn't have to end this way, you don't want to be where I am."

"Alright, that's very good advice, thank you for coming on the show," he said, suddenly in wrap-up mode as he turned to face a different camera. "Coming up next, we'll be looking at a missing child in Colorado. Could the suspect be closer than previously thought?"

Belle stayed where she was until the cameraman signaled that they were off air and Sidney Glass turned to face them.

"That was beautiful," he said. "Absolutely perfect. You're going to be on the front page of every news website after this airs, I can promise you that."

She wasn't really sure what to say to that – she didn't _want_ to be major news, she wanted to be left alone and to never have had any of this happen to her.

"After this is all over, you should really think about activism," he continued. "You're the perfect poster-girl for domestic violence. Pretty, articulate, middle class, white woman beaten and abused by a wealthy mortgage broker in a small town? The headlines write themselves. You could do a lot of good for a lot of people."

"Thank you," she said, though she didn't really mean it. It was awful to hear herself broken down into demographics like that, but it was how the world was going to see her, wasn't it? And moreso, wasn't that the whole reason she'd done this show? Because she was a perfect sympathetic victim who everyone thought had shot a man? She was basically the plot of a Lifetime Original Movie.

She was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that _this_ was her new reality as a production assistant (not the one who had been sobbing) escorted her and Mal off to the green room to prepare to leave.

"You did good," Mal said. "I'd be surprised if the DA isn't scrambling to file for a change of venue herself as we speak, and once this airs? Good luck finding a jury to convict you anywhere. She'll have to refile in Malaysia just to have hope."

"Doesn't it bother you, though?" Belle asked.

"What? Having you do interviews?"

"Using public interest in the case to manipulate the courts? How is that fair?"

Mal looked over at her with shock on her face.

"Honey, it's the legal system not the justice system. _Justice_ would probably end up with you being thrown a parade. I'm not going to mourn for a man like that, and neither should you."

"But he's dead and it's my fault."

"Oh please, he deserved it and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise," Mal said with something almost like sympathy in her voice. "Look, there's a thing in law called _felony murder_. It basically says that if somebody is committing a felony and somebody else gets killed, you're responsible for the murder whether you killed them or not. Even say two people are committing a burglary and the victim shoots one the other guy can be charged with murder. In my opinion, that makes him responsible for his own murder. Assault is a felony, and he died because he was assaulting you. You pulling the trigger doesn't make it your fault, he's the one who chose everything in your relationship – you said it yourself out there. He chose to attack you, he chose to take the risk that you might kill him for it. I'm not going to cry over one less abusive bastard in this world."

Strangely, that actually made Belle feel better.

"Oh and here's some more good news," Mal said, looking up from her phone. "The forensics came back and they match up with your story. Congratulations, kid, you've proved self-defense."

Belle was a little light-headed at that and she actually stumbled into the wall. The forensics matched. She'd faked it well and she'd gotten so, so lucky. It was possible they didn't look at it too hard, but it all matched up.

"I think I'm going to faint," Belle said, trying to bend over to get blood back in her head.

"Okay not now," Mal said quickly, grabbing her arm and sitting her on the sofa. "Head between your knees and take deep breaths. It's going to be okay. You're okay."

Belle was still reeling when Mal's phone buzzed again.

"Oh boy, you ready for this one?" the attorney asked.

"What now?"

"They're dropping all charges. The DA is declining to pursue your case. You're a free woman!"


	17. Chapter 17

All told, Belle's legal problems went on for just under two months before news finally broke that charges wouldn't be pressed. Bobby was sure he lost twenty years of his life in that time. The shooting had become national news, and everyone local was talking about it. He was doing his level best to avoid any discussion, but it was becoming more and more difficult as time went on. It bothered him to hear about it, but he didn't dare tell anyone why. It was starting to affect his sleep, and mood for the worse and he'd even snapped at Bae a few times when he knew he shouldn't have.

The worst was the day her interview on _The Gavel_ had aired. He'd known a lot of the things she had said, but he'd never noticed the brand on her back. He almost wouldn't have believed it if someone hadn't leaked a picture to the press later that week, it was just too awful a detail to be believed but then again Bobby had watched the man put her head through a wall and had to shoot him in the chest to make him stop. He wasn't sure how he could have missed the scar the one time they'd had sex, but it had been dark and frantic and he honestly hadn't spent too much time looking at her back – he'd been far more concerned with the front of her. She had left town not long after the charges were dropped, and from what he could gather from the media circus still surrounding the case, she had retreated back to her father's house to recuperate and get her life together. He was so happy for her, but at the same time he was terrified for himself.

Every moment of his life he was expecting the police to arrive or to hear that the first woman who'd ever been kind to him was sentenced to the electric chair because of _his_ actions. By the time news came through that the charges had been dropped he would have almost been relieved to find out she'd turned him in just so he could stop having the sword of damocles dangling over his head. So, of course, that's when Milah decided to reappear in his life.

He was barely holding it together as it was, and that particular day had been worse than most. He hadn't expected the knock on the door and hadn't even bothered to look through the peephole before he'd opened the door and just about slammed it back in her face.

"Bae!" Milah exclaimed cheerfully, and the little boy came running from his seat on the sofa and paused right behind his father. "I've missed you, baby," Milah continued, kneeling and opening her arms towards their son.

Bailey looked cautiously between his parents and Bobby wasn't sure what to do. He didn't want to encourage his son to hug his mother, but he didn't want to needlessly scare Bae, either. Eventually, Bae took a step forward and let his mother hug him for a few seconds before he pulled away and retreated to safety behind his father. Milah's face fell, though she kept a fake smile plastered on her face that she probably thought seemed approachable but it just made her look dangerous.

"Bae, why don't you go play in your room?" he said as he watched Milah warily, and she tracked Bae as he made his way to the hallway and shut the door to his room. Bobby had his phone in his pocket, and he needed to keep it together and get rid of her. She wasn't a tenant here, the custody agreement gave him full legal and physical custody of their son, and the divorce was simply waiting for the cooling off period of their separation to expire before it could be finalized. This was his home, and she had no right to be here.

"He's gotten big," Milah said. "He's going to be so handsome when he grows up!"

"What do you want?" he asked. He didn't have the energy for this, or the inclination to deal with her on top of everything else.

"I came to apologize," Milah said. "I know things have been bad but we both made mistakes and There's no reason not to be a family anymore."

"You're kidding," he blurted out. She couldn't be serious. She absolutely _could not_ be serious. "The divorce is going to be finalized in a couple of weeks. This is all settled, Milah."

"Oh come on, you know how we are," she replied. "Come home and we'll figure it all out."

He knew it was a bad idea to even let her be here, but he was tired of fighting and being afraid and Milah was _safe_. No, she wasn't safe really – she was familiar. He knew what to expect, and that was things being thrown and broken and his son being hurt. Hell, she was probably only here because she'd realized she was going to have to take out a second mortgage on the house to pay him his share.

"I don't _want_ to be that way anymore," he said at last, and it surprised him how true it really was in that moment. "I don't want Bae to think that's normal, and I don't want to live like that."

Milah's nostrils flared for the briefest of moments and he steadied himself on the door for reassurance. He had gone with Belle and shot a man much more dangerous than Milah ever had been, he could be strong for this, too.

"Come on," she said, sounding less patient than she had before but still holding it together well enough. "It's going to be different this time, I swear. I want you back."

"You gave me an STD," he said firmly. "You're violent, you're cheating on me, and I think you might be an alcoholic. Why would I want _you_ back?"

Her face changed instantly and time and experience had taught him to slam the door a split second before her anger turned violent. He heard her screaming and pounding on the other side of the door even as he turned the deadbolt.

"What's going on?" Bae asked and Bobby turned to see his son sitting in the hallway and his stomach dropped. How long had Bae been watching?

"It's fine," he said on impulse, but then caught himself. It wasn't fine, and maybe it was time to be honest about that. "No, it's not okay. Come on," he said continued. "Let's go watch TV in your room for a little while and then I'll explain once this is calmed down."

Bae nodded, but let his father lead him into his bedroom and waited patiently while Bobby called the police to explain that his alcoholic estranged wife who had hit their son had shown up on his doorstep and was currently in a rage outside in the breezeway.

If nothing else good had come of the media circus surrounding Belle, the local sheriff was Johnny on the spot for domestic disputes now and the deputies arrived, took his statement, and had Milah in the backseat of a police cruiser in record time. They left him with a recommendation that he get an order of protection and advice to remind the school of who precisely was allowed to pick his child up. Nobody judged him, or asked why he could defend himself from her. It was a shock to his system, since he'd always expected to be dismissed by police unless he had visible injuries (like a fresh stab wound). But maybe that much had changed, at least for a little while with the awful details of Belle's life still fresh in the public memory.

"I'm sorry about that," Bobby said to Bae as soon as the police had left. "I wish you didn't have to see bad things happen."

"Did she hurt you again?" Bae asked, looking openly at his father's arms with a wary curiosity that broke Bobby's heart all over again.

"No, not this time," Bobby said quickly, holding his arms out and rolling his sleeves up so Bae could see only the old scars remaining and no new wounds. "And she's not going to hurt either one of us ever again. Tomorrow I'm going to go to your school and make sure nobody else is allowed to pick you up except for me and if you see her and she asks you to do something, I need you to know that you don't have to and it's really important that you find a teacher or policeman and say you're in trouble, okay?"

Bae nodded solemnly and he looked so grown up now that Bobby could hardly stand it.

"How about we come up with a code word, just you and me. And anyone who has my permission to pick you up from someplace will know that word. And this weekend we can get you your own phone so you can call for help if your scared."

"Okay," Bae said with a nod. "Is Belle going to start watching me again?"

Bobby felt his stomach drop at the mention of her name, but he should have expected it. There was no way to keep something that big away from his son forever.

"No she's not," he replied. "Belle went home to live with her father for a little while. Do you understand why?"

"She killed her boyfriend?" Bae asked, like he wasn't quite sure if he was right or not. "And now people are mad at her?"

"Sort of," Bobby said carefully. He wanted to give his son just enough information without saying anything compromising or traumatizing for anybody. "Remember how we talked about how Belle's boyfriend hurt her and that's why she was at the shelter with us?"

"Yeah."

"Well, Belle's boyfriend was a lot bigger than her and he tried to hurt her again and he got shot because he wouldn't stop. And a lot of people are mad at her because they think he shouldn't have been shot and that it was her fault that he hurt her."

"But it wasn't," Bae said firmly with all the authority and confidence of a child who was sure he remembered the answer to a question. "It was her boyfriend's fault that he hurt her because everybody is only responsible for how they act and it's never your fault if someone hurts you ever."

"That's exactly right. Did Dr. Hopper tell you that?"

Bae nodded again, and Bobby had to struggle to suppress years of pride at how clever and confident his son was. Bae would come out of this alright, and he was so glad of that.

"You're so smart," Bobby said at last. "And I am so proud of you. But I want you to understand that you _are_ a good person, and it's okay for you to defend yourself if someone hurts you. Not by shooting them, but by getting away and finding help if you can or screaming and fighting back if you have to. You're worth defending, and Belle was worth defending and it's not okay to kill someone but she was right to protect herself in any way she could. In her case, her boyfriend was trying to kill her so she didn't have any other options." He felt like he was rambling, but explaining _justifiable homicide_ to a grade schooler wasn't exactly something they covered on Sesame Street, so instead he was just telling his son everything he wished somebody had told him and Belle. "Do you understand?"

"Yeah," Bae said quietly. "I understand. Don't kill people unless I have to."

"Don't kill anyone unless you know that they'll kill you and you can't stop them. But it's not going to come to that for you. I am always going to be there to protect you and as long as I'm here nobody will ever hurt you again. I promise you that."

Bae smiled and leaned forward to hug Bobby, and he pulled his child into his lap and snuggled him until Bae squawked indignantly and squirmed away, suddenly remembering he was too old for cuddles from his father like that.

Bobby spent a sleepless night on the floor of his son's bedroom, and the next morning at work he emailed Dr. Hopper for a referral for his own psychiatrist. It was time to talk to somebody about everything that had happened. He didn't want Gaston and Milah hanging over his head anymore, he wanted to be present for his son, and he needed to be there to make sure that his son would be safe. It was time to fix himself.


	18. Chapter 18

It was another few weeks before Bobby heard from Belle again. He'd started to think he never would, and that she had decided to make a clean break from him and her old life when she'd moved. Then one day, out of the blue, a strange number sent him a text message and when he opened it it was a picture of her and the word _hello_. She was smiling at the camera in a way that reached her eyes and it took his breath away, because she looked lighter than she had when he'd known her – not _thinner_ (if anything, she'd gained a little weight), but less like she was being crushed slowly. There was a heaviness that had fallen off of her, and he felt so relieved just to see it. She looked happy and healthy, and alive in a way she hadn't been before. He'd discussed the night of the shooting with his therapist and just saying the words out loud had helped a lot, but seeing the change in Belle went a long way towards alleviating the guilt he felt over shooting Gaston. She was alive because of what he'd done.

The words _miss me?_ flashed across his screen, and he couldn't help smiling himself then.

 _Of course_ , he sent back. _It's been dull without you._

 _That's too bad,_ she replied. _Sorry I kept away so long. Can I call you tonight?_

There was no reason for her not to. For the first time since he'd known her, she wasn't a danger to him. It was a strangely freeing thought.

 _Sure. I'll be home all night._

 _Great! How's Bae been?_

They texted back and forth like that all day, making small talk while he was at work and then making dinner. She finally called not long after he'd put Bae down for bed, and the sound of her voice brought all the feelings flooding back. He'd hardly expected to ever speak to her again, and now here she was.

"God, I really missed hearing your voice," she said. "Everyone here is a little afraid to talk to me I think. Like I'm gonna have a break down and start shooting if they look at me wrong."

"I'm sorry," he said on instinct. He still felt guilty about leaving her to take the blame after he'd shot someone, and he wasn't sure if he'd get over that any time soon.

"Don't apologize," she replied. "I never had time to thank you, actually. You saved my life, you know."

"It...it wasn't that big a deal."

"No, it was. I'd honestly be dead now without you."

He wasn't sure how to respond, but the silence was comfortable now. Even if he never saw her again, they'd changed each other's lives.

"So how have things been going?" she said at last. "Is Bae doing better in school?"

"Yeah, he actually is. Things have gotten a lot more settled, and since the divorce finally went through I think he's feeling a lot more secure."

"Or maybe his father is?"

"That, too," Bobby said. "It's such a relief to have everything in writing saying exactly what she is and isn't allowed to do."

"I'm really happy for you both. You two deserve some peace."

It was like she'd never left, and Bobby was so glad that she'd called. They chatted for an hour or so, and she sent him another text to say goodnight right before he was about to go to bed. They kept up that way for a few more weeks. She was doing some sort of media tour by then, going on talk shows and talking about a bill that was going through the state senate to increase penalties for people found guilty of domestic violence, which wouldn't have helped her case at all but she seemed excited about doing something good and Bobby was happy for her. She was making a difference.

They talked about how her father was overprotective, and she was starting to remember why she'd gone to school so far away to begin with. She'd figured out a lot about herself between therapy and being back home, and she sounded so much more alive now. It took him a few days to recognize the difference – she had hope now, whereas before she'd always seemed like she truly didn't think she had a future.

"Did I tell you I'm coming back?" she said one day after they'd been exchanging texts and calls for about six weeks. "I got accepted back to school, so I'm going to finish my degree."

It took him a second to put together in his head that _coming back_ meant that she'd be back in town and wanted to see him again. His heart was pounding in his chest as she went on and on about everything she wanted to do.

"Will everything be alright for you if you come back?" he asked. "What about his father?"

"We uh, we came to an agreement," she said. "I'm not worried about him anymore."

"What kind of agreement?"

"There were some things that came up in the autopsy that he doesn't want made public knowledge. Don't tell anybody, but Gaston had cocaine in his system when he died."

Somehow, he wasn't surprised to hear that. It actually made a strange amount of sense. His intense desire to hurt her was completely irrational, and he hadn't been able to control it even in the presence of a witness. That definitely explained why the charges had been dropped and why his father had suddenly ceased his quest to drag Belle's name through the mud.

"How long was he doing the drugs?" he asked.

"Apparently a while now," she said. "I'm pretty embarrassed I never noticed, to be honest."

"Don't feel too bad about it," he said. "It's never as obvious as you think it's going to be and I doubt he was letting you know what he was doing at any given moment."

"No, he didn't," she said a little sadly. "Still, I wish I'd known. Maybe it could have been helped if I'd been paying better attention."

"Don't think about that. You'll drive yourself crazy with hypotheticals, and you did as much for him as you could have. It wasn't your job to save his life."

"Yeah," she said a little sadly. "I know. But you know how it is."

"I do. Are you going to be okay?"

She let out a little high pitched giggle that almost sounded like a sob.

"If I could survive the last five years, I can survive anything."

"Yeah, I guess you can."

Even knowing she'd be moving back to town – even being privy to her hunt for a roommate and knowing where she'd be living – seeing her sitting on the hood of his car in a purple t-shirt and a floral skirt before he dropped Bae off at school one day almost floored him.

"Hey," she said sweetly as soon as she saw them. She looked a little nervous, but he could hardly breathe to get out the words to tell her she had no reason to be nervous at all. Of course he was happy to see her.

"Belle!" Bae chirped, rushing forward to hug her.

"Hi Bae," Belle said, hugging him back. "You got so big! Are you driving yet?"

"No!" he said, giggling. "I'm six!"

"Are you sure? You're almost as tall as me!"

Bae was laughing in earnest now, and Bobby wasn't sure if he should laugh or cry with relief. Belle was back, and Bae was happy – what more could he ever want?

Belle was watching Bobby now, and his heart was in his throat as he approached them both. Belle released Bae and stood up as Bobby approached.

"Hi Bobby," she said. "You look good."

"You do, too," he replied. "Did you cut your hair?"

"I did! I also grew my bangs out. Do you like it?" She flipped her hair over her shoulder a little self-consciously.

"I do," he said. "It suits you."

She smiled again and he wanted to hug her, but Bae was still standing there awkwardly shifting his backpack and Bobby had no idea what to do because she was _here_ but at the same time he had to go to work and Bae had school.

"We have to go," he said at last. "I wish I'd known you were coming. I'd have taken the day off."

"I just got in like, two hours ago," she said. "It was super last minute, I just couldn't wait to see my two favorite guys."

He was trying to figure out something to say, some way to ask her to see him again without asking her on a date. He wasn't sure that she'd wanted to reconnect that way, or even if she was ready to date again yet.

"Do you mind if I come along for the ride?" she asked before he could figure something out. "I wanted to go into town anyway and I don't have anything else to do today."

"Of course," he said. "It'll be nice to catch up."

The car ride to the school was filled with Bae's chatter as he caught Belle up on his life and the friends he was making in school and how much he really wanted to get a dog. It was outrageously pleasant, but Bobby was so happy to drop his son off and finally have Belle all to himself as he drove to work.

"Sorry for just kind of appearing today," she said into the silence. "I just really wanted to see you."

"I'm glad you came. It was a really good surprised."

"How have you both been? I worry and I know you don't tell me everything on the phone."

"Honestly, it's been a challenge but we're doing well. The divorce finalized, and aside from one random appearance I haven't seen Milah at all. Of course, I also haven't gotten the check for my portion of the house, but she still has some time to work that out before I get to sue her."

"What happened when she showed up?"

"Not a whole lot, mostly I just called the cops."

"Good," she said firmly, reaching out and putting her hand on his. "You deserve better."

"I do," he said. "Sometimes I have to remind myself of that, but I really do."

They fell into a comfortable silence after that, but Belle never took her hand off of his and he didn't dare move it away until he absolutely had to. He hadn't realized how much he missed her but having her back was an absolute relief, and he was honestly resisting the urge to call in and claim car trouble except they were basically in the parking lot for the office now so it was probably too late.

"So, do you have a babysitter for Bae?" Belle asked as he turned the car off.

"There's an older woman next door who watches him sometimes in the afternoons and if he's sick. Why?"

"Well, I don't start classes for another couple weeks, so I'm going to have some free time and I was wondering if you'd like to do something together. Just the two of us."

"Yeah, of course," he said. "I'd love to."

"Do you want to go to a movie? We could actually go inside for once if you'd like since nobody's trying to kill me now," she said with an ironic little smirk. "Or we could do something else. I just missed you."

"A movie sounds great," he replied, trying to decide how best to approach this next part. "I missed you, too. Things have been going really well, but to be honest I've felt like something was missing since you've been away. I'm really, really glad you're back."

"I am, too. I know that I'm always going to be that woman who shot her boyfriend while I'm here, but at least everyone knows who I am. I got so sick of having to explain myself and to tell that whole story over and over again...and well, _you're_ here. And I didn't want to be away anymore. You're probably the best friend I've ever had."

His heart was doing little flips in his chest at her words, and now he was really sure he should have just taken a sick day because he wasn't going to be able to do anything else except replay this conversation over and over again.

"Oh?" he said at last when she didn't continue.

"Yeah. Bobby, you saved my life – you _literally_ saved my life and I can't actually ever repay you for that. You've always been so good to me, even when I was making really bad choices you were there. How could I not come back to you after that?"

He was going to have to pick his next words carefully, because there was a fine line to walk here. It had always been a delicate relationship or friendship or whatever it was, and now more than ever he felt the fear of breaking the whole thing.

"Is – you were coming back _to me_?" he said at last. "Is that where we are now?"

She smiled and shrugged, and then crossed the space between them to kiss him softly on the lips.

"If you want," she replied. "But yeah, I'd like to pick up where we left off if you think we can. I'm in a much better place now, and I just...I really want to share that with you."

He couldn't help himself. He slipped his hand behind her head and moved in for another kiss, deeper this time and so much more passionate. They couldn't pick up right where the left off, because they had both grown so much since they'd met and then since they'd parted, but he still loved her. There was still an ache in his heart that only went away when she was there, and time hadn't done anything but make him grow used to it. Now that she had returned he felt whole for the first time in months.

At last they broke apart again, and there was a little flush on her cheeks that was so cute he almost kissed her again but she was smiling so hard that he couldn't stop staring at her long enough to do it.

"Is that a yes?" she asked.

"Of course it is," he replied. "You were worth waiting for."

She smiled and put her hand on his again, and in that moment he somehow just knew that it was going to be alright.


	19. Chapter 19

It wasn't an immediate sort of love. Belle had known she was being irrationally optimistic about picking up where they left off, but the reality of actually getting to know each other again had still been like a splash of cold water to her face. They were two entirely different people now than they had been when they had parted, but the things she had liked about him when they had first dated were still present in him now. The difference was that now he was more willing to accept that they were there and that she could see them.

There were still awkward things. The three of them (her and Bobby and Bae) had all spent years living in fear, and those weren't wounds that healed overnight. She'd started trying to laugh whenever she had what she called a 'PTSD moment' and that helped take some of the sting out of it for all of them. Like the time Bae had dropped a glass of water and both she and Bobby had flinched – they'd all three stood there in the silence staring at each other in varying degrees of terror and embarrassment until eventually she couldn't help but giggle at the absurdity of the whole situation (and a little bit in relief) and that had gotten Bobby to start laughing and then Bae had started and by the time the glass was picked up and thrown away nobody was embarrassed by their fear. They helped each other, and it was starting to feel like a family.

She still lived apart. She'd never been on her own before, and having nobody to answer to for the first time in her entire life was the best feeling in the world. She was still living with a woman named Mulan, but she mostly kept to herself and so nobody ever asked Belle where she was going or why she'd been out so late. It felt so good to just enjoy her freedom to do what she wanted when she wanted and to be accountable to nobody. Meanwhile he'd found a job at the college teaching vocational classes for cabinetry and woodworking. It paid well enough and there was room to get better pay and rise up in the faculty if he took some night classes later, which she thought he wanted to do once things were more settled.

As well as things were going with Bobby, she didn't think either one was in a hurry to combine households yet. She liked the idea of it someday, but they'd both been so trapped before and so damaged by it that both were abnormally cautious, and anyway she wanted to finish her degree before she did anything else. She wasn't going to be a housewife again, and if she did move forward with Bobby they would need the second income, especially since both of them did want to have more children in that nebulous someday where there was a house and better jobs and a stable family. Someday when they were both ready to make that commitment, which they weren't just yet, but there was time. She wasn't even thirty and she didn't think she wanted more than maybe one or two children besides Bae and she couldn't imagine he'd want more than that himself. There was plenty of time, and she wanted to make sure that this time she would be ready and the baby would be safe and loved, and maybe that was what she liked best about Bobby – his son had everything that she wanted for her children and no matter where things went with the two of them as a couple their child would always have a father. Someday.

They didn't have sex again for awhile. Her therapist had been working with her on what she called Belle's tendency to conflate sex with love, and particularly the way she would do things she didn't necessarily want to do in order to please. Having it all laid out put a lot of her life into a weird focus. She'd always been a people pleaser, and Gaston hadn't really acknowledged or accepted any of her boundaries so by the end she'd become used to doing things she found uncomfortable or embarrassing just to keep herself safe and it hadn't occurred to her that it wasn't normal to feel used and dirty after sex.

That was the one thing she found that she couldn't discuss with Bobby. She didn't want him to think her regrets about their first sexual encounter had anything to do with the fact that it was _with him_ , as opposed to the fact that she regretted doing it when both of them were so appallingly ill-prepared for that level of intimacy. The one time she'd had the courage to bring sex up again, it had been to tell him that this time she wanted to wait until they were both sure it was something they wanted to do and not to rush into anything for the sake of doing it. She didn't think she'd ever seen a man look so relieved about a woman not wanting to sleep with him, but there it was. He'd said she was worth waiting for, but so was he.

They did other things, anyway. Their relationship progressed over a period of a couple months from high school style making out in his car to him coming to her apartment here they left all their clothes on and touched and kissed until it was time for him to go home and then to clothes coming off. The day after the first time he took her panties off of his own volition, she went to the clinic and got on birth control. It was still another month before anything else happened, but she was more than ready for the day when he held her too tightly and said he wished he didn't have to go home.

"I'll come with you if you want," she said, kissing his neck softly. "If you don't mind Bae knowing I spent the night."

He looked at her and seemed so startled, but he was smiling this time and there wasn't any terror in his face.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "I don't mind, really, I just…"

His voice trailed off, but she knew what he'd meant. She missed him, too.

"I am," she replied honestly. "I think I've been sure for awhile. It just feels _right_."

"Okay. Then I'd really like that."

She smiled at him and they kissed again before she scrambled off her bed and packed an overnight bag in a hurry while he waited. Mulan didn't do more than smirk when she saw them leaving together with the duffel bag in tow, and Belle could feel herself blushing but it was so hard to care when his hand was in hers and the whole night was ahead of them.

Bae was already asleep at the babysitter's house, but somehow Bobby managed to carry the sleeping boy back to his own bed without waking him up. Neither one of them spoke during the entire process, or when Bobby finally led her down the hall to his room and shut the door leaving them alone.

There was a tingly feeling running down her spine as he looked at her standing there next to his bed, and it took her a moment to realize it was excitement at what was to come. He looked so happy to have her there, and so relieved that she'd decided to come home with him and nothing at all like she was used to seeing a man look beforehand. Her heart felt about ready to explode as she put her arms around his neck and kissed him so hard that she accidentally bit his lip a little bit and had to stifle her giggle when he pulled away with a shocked look and a smile. He was so handsome, and she had him all night.

Bobby shushed her gently and kissed her neck softly, but mostly he just held her for a long moment. It was so nice, she never wanted it to end.

"Can I take your shirt off?" he whispered into her hair, and she nodded eagerly.

Bobby dragged his hands down her sides to her hips, and then under the hem of her shirt. He slid his hands back up her body gently, pulling the shirt up higher and higher as he touched her, and she raised her arms and let him take it over her head, and she was surprised at how confident she felt as he looked at her. She should be self-conscious, but she just felt entirely natural as he traced the outline of her bra with his fingertips. It wasn't anything fancy, just a simple off-white one made of a floral lace with a little ribbon in the center, but he smiled at it as he slid one of the straps off her shoulder.

"You are so beautiful," he said. "It's amazing."

"I was just thinking how handsome you are," she replied. "Will you take me to bed?"

He kissed her in response, and she felt warm all the way to her toes. There was some fumbling as they got into his bed and took each other's clothes off, and some awkward moments when he realized neither one had brought condoms leaving her to explain that she'd already dealt with that weeks ago and just hadn't told him for fear of him being too pushy, but soon enough she was beneath him under the covers and he looked so happy she almost wanted to cry, except then he was kissing his way down her body and she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out at how _good_ it felt to have his mouth on her.

She remembered he liked to hear her talk to him, so as soon as she trusted her voice she told him how good it felt and how much she was enjoying him, though the longer it went on the more it turned into the words _oh yes_ and _more_ and _God, Bobby_ but the more she said the more energetic he seemed to get and by the end she had to cover her face with a pillow to muffle her cries of pleasure and by the time she had come down enough to form coherent thoughts she realized he had every intention of continuing, but after the second time she was ready for more (and in desperate need of a break) and had to pull him back up to face level.

Belle couldn't help but giggle at the slightly dopey expression on his face and the way everything below his nose was shining in the low light, but he didn't flinch at her laughter and she kissed him until she saw stars.

"You're so good at that," she said as she fell back onto the pillows. "How am I supposed to go home now that I know what happens here?"

"You're welcome to sleep over more often. I don't mind the company."

"Who said I was ready to sleep?" she asked. "I'm pretty sure this means it's your turn."

She kissed him again, pressing forward until he got the hint and let her roll him over onto his back so she could touch him all over. He looked conflicted, and had his mouth open like he couldn't decide if he wanted to say something or not, and she felt her heart squeeze in her chest.

"I know I don't have to," she whispered. "But I want to."

He nodded, and relaxed some but not quite enough to make her feel better about it. She wanted to do this, but she wanted him to be comfortable. Instead of immediately going down his body, she nestled into his side and stroked her hand down his chest slowly so he had time to adjust before she took him in hand and started stroking him gently.

"You did so much for me," she whispered into his ear. "I'd really like to return the favor. I want to see how good you'll look when you're coming undone for me and I want to make you feel as good as you make me feel."

She felt him shiver in arousal and then his face relaxed just a bit and she started kissing his chest as she stroked him slowly and made her way down his body until finally she wrapped her lips around the head of him and slowly worked her way down the shaft. He was gasping and clawing at the blankets as she did it, and she slowed her pace until she was sure it was safe before starting the process over again.

As much as she enjoyed his pleasure at this simple favor, she desperately wanted him inside of her tonight and apparently so did he, because before too long he was whispering for her to stop and by the time she was beside him again he was panting heavily and looked completely dazed.

"Are you okay?" she asked, stroking his hair and giving him whatever time she could to settle down.

"Yeah," he said. "That felt so good, Belle, you have no idea."

"I'll have to do it again sometime."

His eyes finally snapped back into focus to look at her in shock, and she kissed his nose softly.

"I _like_ doing that for you," she said. "I like you feeling good the same way you like pleasing me. I _want_ to do it again."

She wasn't sure if either one of them was going to get used to someone else wanting their pleasure, but the way he was looking at her like she was a precious thing to be cherished when he finally moved over top of her again made her never want him to stop. When he finally thrust into her, it felt like her entire world stopped in that moment of his head bowed over her like he was praying for her blessing and when she wrapped her legs around his hips and spurred him forward the whole of Heaven became the feeling of him inside of her. She clung tightly to him and whispered whatever affirmations she could manage, telling him she wanted him and she needed him. She begged him to never stop and stroked herself in time with his thrusts until she was sure her words weren't making any coherent sense but it didn't matter because he understood her meaning as his thrusts became more and more ragged until he finally thrust one last time with a groan spilling from his lips and she quickly toppled over that edge with him.

They lay there for a little while, sweaty and sated in each other's arms until at last he rolled over and wrapped himself around her tightly. It was a strangely comforting feeling to have something of him still inside of her while his arms were around her and his legs were following the curve of hers. She felt his lips on the scar marring her back, and she felt like perhaps she should feel self-conscious about that now, but in that moment none of it mattered anymore. It was a scar that was supposed to mark her as belonging to a man who had tried to possess every part of her, but he couldn't hurt her anymore. It was a testament to the fact that she'd survived, and finally made her way here. He had marked her skin, but Bobby had marked her heart and she was so happy and safe she felt near to bursting.

"Hey," Bobby said, nuzzling her neck affectionately. "I love you, too."

It took her a second to realize what he was talking about, but then she realized that she'd said it in her bliss – the three words that they'd both been dancing around all this time. She hadn't meant to blurt them out like that, but she'd meant them just the same. She was safe now, and she was so happy she thought she might cry.

"Good," she said at last, pulling his arms tighter around her. "Because I love you so, so much."

* * *

Okay, so this is the end of the story. Thank you everyone for all the kind comments! I'm trying to clear out a lot of WIPs over the next few months, but have a lot of new projects in the pipeline so please subscribe to me if you'd like to see more of this sort of thing!


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